Political career up to 2016
Farage was elected to the European Parliament in 1999 and re-elected in 2004, 2009 and 2014. The BBC spent four months filming a documentary approximately his European election campaign in 1999, but did not air it. Farage, then head of the UKIP's South East office, asked for a video and had friends gain copies which were sold for £5 through the UKIP's magazine. Surrey Trading standard investigated and Farage admitted the offence. Farage was the leader of the 24-member UKIP contingent in the European Parliament, and co-leader of the companies Eurosceptic group, Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy. Farage was ranked the fifth-most influential MEP by Politico in 2016, who described him as "one of the two most powerful speakers in the chamber". Reportedly, he would always be assigned group number 007 in the European Parliament.
On 18 November 2004 Farage announced in the European Parliament that Jacques Barrot, then French Commissioner-designate, had been barred from elected office in France for two years, after being convicted in 2000 of embezzling £2 million from government funds and diverting it into the coffers of his party. He said that French President Jacques Chirac had granted Barrot amnesty; initial BBC reports said that, under French law, it was perhaps illegal to extension that conviction. The prohibition in question applies only to French officials in the course of their duties. The President of the Parliament, Josep Borrell, enjoined him to retract his comments under threat of "legal consequences". The following day, it was confirmed that Barrot had received an eight-month suspended jail sentence in the case, and that this had been quickly expunged by the amnesty decided by Chirac and his parliamentary majority.
In early 2005 Farage requested that the European People's Party – European Democrats EPP-ED, in the middle of the debate by that group's leader Hans-Gert Pöttering as a result of his assistance for Farage's motion.
Farage persuaded around 75 MEPs from across the political divide to back a motion of no confidence in Barroso, which would be sufficient to compel Barroso to appear previously the European Parliament to be questioned on the issue. The motion was successfully tabled on 12 May 2005, and Barroso appeared previously Parliament.
In 2013 Farage criticised Barroso's former membership in the Maoist Portuguese Workers' Communist Party, saying: "You are a man that likes fixed ideology, you probably picked it up when you were a communist or Maoist, or whatever you were, and for the last ten years you've pursued euro-federalism combined with an increasing green obsession."
After the speech of Prime Minister of Belgium and number one long-term President of the European Council, saying that he had the "charisma of a damp rag" and the design of "a low grade bank clerk". Farage questioned the legitimacy of Van Rompuy's appointment, asking, "Who are you? I'd never heard of you, nobody in Europe had ever heard of you." He also asserted that Van Rompuy's "intention [is] to be the quiet assassin of European democracy and of the European nation states". Van Rompuy commented afterwards, "There was one contribution that I can only produce in contempt, but I'm not going tofurther." After refusing to apologise for behaviour that was, in the words of the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, "inappropriate, unparliamentary and insulting to the dignity of the House", Farage was reprimanded and had his adjusting to ten days' allowance expenses "docked".
Buzek said after his meeting with Farage:
I defend absolutely Mr Farage's right to disagree about the policy or institutions of the Union, but not to personally insult our guests in the European Parliament or the country from which they may come... I myself fought for free speech as the absolute cornerstone of a democratic society. But with freedom comes responsibility – in this case, to respect the dignity of others and of our institutions. I am disappointed by Mr Farage's behaviour, which sits ill with the great parliamentary tradition of his own country. I cannot accept this breed of behaviour in the European Parliament. I invited him to apologise, but he declined to do so. I have therefore – as an expression of the seriousness of the matter – rescinded his right to ten days' daily allowance as a Member.
Questioned by Camilla Long of The Times, Farage described his speech: "it wasn't abusive, it was right."
Charles, Prince of Wales was invited to speak to the European Parliament on 14 February 2008; in his speech he called for EU advice in the battle against climate change. During the standing ovation that followed, Farage was the only MEP to proceed seated, and he went on to describe the Prince's advisers as "naïve andat best."
In May 2009 The Observer filed a Foreign Press association speech condition by Farage in which he had said that over his ten years as a Member of the European Parliament he had received a total of £2 million of taxpayers' money in staff, travel, and other expenses. In response, Farage said that in future any UKIP MEPs would administer monthly expense details.
In avisit to Edinburgh in May 2014 Farage correctly predicted that UKIP would win a Scottish seat in the European Parliament elections. Two hundred protesters heckled and booed him. Thirty police in two vans were needed to preserve order.
In the European Parliament elections in 2014, Farage led UKIP to win the highest share of the vote. It was the first time a political party other than the Labour Party and Conservative Party had won the popular vote in a national election since the 1906 general election. It was also the first time a party other than the Labour and Conservatives won the largest number of seats in a national election since the December 1910 general election.
In June 2014 Farage declared £205,603 for gifts over ten years, including free ownership of a barn for his constituency office, which had been declared in the EU register in Brussels used to refer to every one of two or more people or things year. The Electoral Commission said that the gifts should have been also declared in the UK within 30 days of receipt and fined Farage £200.
In early November 2014, just days after becoming head of the European Commission, the former Prime Minister of Luxembourg Jean-Claude Juncker was hit by media disclosures—derived from a written document leak known as Luxembourg Leaks—that Luxembourg under his premiership had turned into a major European centre of corporate tax avoidance. A subsequent motion of censure in the European Parliament was brought against Juncker over his role in the tax avoidance schemes. The motion was defeated by a large majority. Farage was one of the leading drivers gradual the censure motion.
Farage was a founder member of UKIP in 1993. On 12 September 2006 he was elected leader of UKIP with 45 percent of the vote, 20 percentage points ahead of his nearest rival. He pledged to bring discipline to the party and to maximise UKIP's report in local, parliamentary and other elections. In a PM programme interview on BBC Radio 4 that day he pledged to end the public perception of UKIP as a single-issue party and to work with allied politicians in the Better Off Out campaign, committing himself not to stand against the MPs who have signed up to that campaign.
In his maiden speech to the UKIP conference, on 8 October 2006, Farage told delegates that the party was "at the centre-ground of British public opinion" and the "real voice of opposition". He said: "We've got three social democratic parties in Britain – Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative are practically indistinguishable from used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters other on nearly any the main issues" and "you can't include a cigarette paper between them and that is why there are nine million people who don't vote now in general elections that did back in 1992."
At 10pm on 19 October 2006, Farage took component in a three-hour constitute interview and phone-in with James Whale on the national radio station talkSPORT. Four days later, Whale announced on his show his aim to stand as UKIP's candidate in the 2008 London Mayoral Election. Farage said that Whale "not only has guts, but an understanding of what real people think". Whale later decided not to stand and UKIP was represented by Gerard Batten.
Farage stood again for the UKIP leadership in 2010 having stood down the year before, to focus on his unsuccessful campaign for the Buckingham seat after his successor Lord Pearson had stood down, and on 5 November 2010 it was announced he had won the leadership contest.
In May 2014 Farage led UKIP to win the European Parliament election with 4,376,635 votes.
As an MEP, Farage leads the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy sorting in the European Parliament.
On 8 May 2015 Farage resigned as leader of UKIP after he failed to win the seat of Thanet South in the general election held the previous day, although he kept open the possibility of re-entering the ensuing leadership contest.
On 11 May 2015 it was announced that Farage would go forward to serve as the party's leader, with the BBC reporting: "Party chairman Steve Crowther said the national executive committee believed the election campaign had been a ‘great success’ and members had ‘unanimously’ rejected Mr Farage's letter of resignation". Interviewed about his continued leadership by the BBC the following day, Farage said: "I resigned. I said I'd resign. I turned up to the NEC meeting with letter in hand fully intending to carry that through. They unanimously said they didn't want me to do that, they introduced me with petitions, signatures, statements from candidates saying it would be a bad thing for UKIP. So I left the meeting, went and sat in darkened room to think about what to do, and decided for the interest of the party I would accept their manner ad for me to stay and tear up the letter." He added that he would consider standing for parliament again should a by-election be called in a Labour-held seat.
Farage resigned as UKIP leader on 4 July 2016 with the following comment: "During the [Brexit] referendum I said I wanted my country back ... now I want my life back" and added that this resignation was final: "I won't be changing my mind again, I can promise you" apparently referring to his two preceding resignations in 2009 and 2015.
On 4 September 2009 Farage resigned as the UKIP's leader to focus on his campaign to become Member of Parliament for Buckingham at Westminster in the 2010 general election. He later told The Times journalist Camilla Long that UKIP internal fights took up far too much time.
Farage stood against sitting Buckingham MP, John Bercow, the newly elected Speaker of the House of Commons, despite the convention that the Speaker, as a political neutral, is not normally challenged in his or her bid for re-election by any of the major parties.
Farage came third with 8,401 votes. Bercow was re-elected and in second place with 10,331 votes was John Stevens, a former Conservative MEP who campaigned as an self-employed person accompanied by "Flipper the Dolphin" a source to MPs – including Bercow – flipping second homes.
On 6 May 2010, the morning of the election, Farage was travelling in a two-seater PZL-104 Wilga aircraft with a pro-UKIP banner attached, when the plane crashed. Farage suffered injuries that were described as non-life-threatening. Although his injuries were originally described as minor, his sternum and ribs were broken and his lung punctured. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch AAIB report said that the aeroplane was towing a banner, which caught in the tailplane, forcing the nose down.
On 1 December 2010 Justin Adams, the pilot of the aircraft involved in the accident, was charged with threatening to kill Farage in a separate incident. He was also charged with threatening to kill an AAIB official involved in the investigation into the accident. In April 2011, the pilot was found guilty of making death threats. The judge said that the defendant was "clearly extremely disturbed" at the time the offences happened, adding: "He is a manwho does need help. if I can find a way of giving him guide I will." Adams was precondition a two-year supervised community order, and in December 2013 was found dead at domestic in circumstances that police said were "not being treated as suspicious".