‘Mr Brexit’ Nigel Farage: ‘I think Australia should wake up to it’

[Ulquiorra]

HE’S been dubbed “Mr Brexit” and revels in his status as a political disrupter — and now Nigel Farage has a warning for Australians.

Mr Farage, the former leader of nationalist UK Independence Party (UKIP) and who led the bitter campaign to get Britain out of the European Union, is convinced conditions were ripe in Australia for the same massive upheaval seen around the world.

And he thinks we should brace ourselves as a “global revolution” sweeps the world.

“It’s on course, it’s happening, and I think Australia should wake up to it and understand it because it’s happening … Something is really happening here.”

He was speaking not only about Britain’s impending divorce from the EU and the rise of Donald Trump in the US, but the new governments in Italy and Austria, and political upheaval in Germany.

Australia had the potential to be the same.

“Australia is slightly isolated from all that, partly through your geography, but it is not immune,” he told news.com.au in London ahead of his five-date lecture tour in Australia in September. He promised audiences would hear about the way he saw the “global revolution” occurring and about the dangers of globalisation — which he believed was fuelling the big political upsets.

The tour website describes him as the “face” of the Brexit campaign to leave the EU and someone who is frequently “widely consulted” for his views on international political issues and populist revolts against the status quo.

“[The] fightback that is going on is a lot more fundamental than [just] short bursts of anger. The whole Western world is changing and reshaping.”

If people thought it was over, they were wrong.

“It’s just beginning actually. It’s just getting started.”

Immigration policy was at the heart of what he was talking about it. “I’m arguing against globalisation I’m not saying to pull the drawbridge up but am arguing for the UK to control who comes over it.”

The new Italian interior minister Matteo Salvini alarmed many EU leaders this month when he refused a boatload of migrants entry to Italy — a move Mr Farage praised and likened to Australia’s policy on turning around migrant boats.

“I’ve pointed to Australia again and again. But despite your geography [and isolation] global money can undermine your liberty. They did it to us, they will do it to you. Globalist money is the biggest threat to Australia.”

Opponents argued the nation state was archaic and “doesn’t belong [in the] modern world”. But it was here he believed Australia was at an advantage.

“I think in Australia your sense nationhood is more acute, possibly because you’re somewhat younger and your radar is better than ours. But don’t think [global forces] aren’t any less insidious or dangerous, because they are.”

The anti-Establishment Mr Farage urged Australians earlier this year to “take back” their country and “stand up and be counted”.

That would happen in an instant if politicians forgot who they were working for.

“If people in Canberra start to represent themselves rather than the ordinary people then the revolution will come to Australia.”

Mr Farage said Mr Salvini used to work for him and found it amusing that “all my mates” were now coming to prominence.

They were shunned and derided back then.

“At one stage we were on the outer. In 2013 I was having dinner in Washington with a complete unknown, an eccentric guy called Jeff Sessions, who is now Attorney-General, Stephen Miller, who is a Donald Trump speechwriter, and Laura Ingraham who now hosts a major show on Fox. And there was I in this group and we were all fringe of the fringe.”

Mr Farage wouldn’t speak about Mr Trump, other than to confirm he was in close contact with the US President and would meet with him when he came to the United Kingdom.

“I think he needs to have people he can properly trust. And I’m one of them.”

By the time Mr Farage begins his Down Under tour, which also includes an event in New Zealand, Brexit will be closer to being reality.

“I’m a bit schizophrenic about Brexit. Us leaving is everything I campaigned on and it’s going to happen, but what is happening is we are going into negotiations in a lily-livered, weak way. It will mean we won’t reap the benefits for years to come.”

But a bad Brexit was still a good Brexit — and if he was driving the negotiations in Theresa May’s place he would take a leaf out of his mate from the White House’s book.

“I would do a Donald. It would be massively different and it would be all done and dusted [by now]. I would say to them where I wanted it to go, and be reasonable and willing to compromise, but everyone in business knows to get a good deal the other side needs to know [that] you’re willing to walk out the door.”