It was the speech that made Nigel Farage’s reputation: inflammatory, insulting and riddled with distortions. Speaking on the floor of the European parliament, Farage addressed Herman Van Rompuy, an erudite, softly spoken former Belgian prime minister, appointed to the new post of European Council president. “I don’t want to be rude,” Farage began. “But, really, you have the charisma of a damp rag and the appearance of a low-grade bank clerk and the question I want to ask is: ‘Who are you?’”
Van Rompuy’s job was to chair meetings between EU leaders, rather than, as Farage put it, be “the political leader for 500 million people”. Amid heckles and boos in the far-from-full Strasbourg chamber, Farage said Van Rompuy’s intention was to be “the quiet assassin of European democracy”, before going on to insult the Belgian’s home nation as “a non-country”.
