A messy relationship
Superficially, Nigel Farage is an ideological fellow traveller of Northern Ireland unionist parties. However, beneath the surface, a messy relationship exists between unionism and the man confident of residing in 10 Downing Street by the end of the decade. Joshua Murray has been tracking the relationship.
In August 2026, Nigel Farage returned to Westminster after seeing off a byelection challenge from Count Binface. He had been under investigation by the UK’s Parliamentary Standards Commissioner over a £5 million gift from Thailand-based cryptocurrency billionaire Christopher Harborne, which Farage allegedly failed to declare. Upon his return to parliament, the investigation immediately re-opened.
In spite of this and the bounce in popularity in Britain for new Prime Minister Andy Burnham, Reform remains strong in the polls and the prospect of Farage moving into 10 Downing Street remains of interest to people in Northern Ireland.
A source once revealed to agendaNi that Farage takes pleasure in teasing Northern Ireland unionists in the House of Commons by referring to them as ‘Paddy’, a joke which is reportedly and perhaps unsurprisingly not appreciated among unionist MPs.
Before Farage returned to frontline politics in 2024, Reform was in an electoral alliance with Jim Allister’s TUV. Farage, however, personally endorsed the DUP’s Ian Paisley and Sammy Wilson, despite Reform continuing to back Allister under its electoral arrangement with the TUV. The Reform leader specified: “I’m gonna stand up to support Sammy Wilson and Ian Paisley as people I fought with all through the Brexit years.”
“New leadership brings changes, I wish the TUV well,” Farage coldly said upon his return.
An overconfident Paisley subsequently boasted that he was “surprised Jim thought that he had something that he didn’t have”.
“I think it actually clears up some of the confusion around how Jim maybe oversold what he had,” Paisley added.
Paisley subsequently lost North Antrim to Allister, ending 54 years of Paisley family representation in the constituency. Allister later declined to take the Reform whip in the House of Commons.
Speaking after Farage’s betrayal of his party, the TUV leader asserted that Farage has “some idiosyncrasies that come to the surface from time to time”.
He made reference to a 2023 interview in which Farage, apparently drunkenly, told The Irish Times, that “one day there will be a united Ireland”.
“There have been one or two dubious utterances relating to Northen Ireland, ‘the Northern Ireland thing’, and indeed some previous comments about Irish unity and matters like that,” Allister said.
Farage and Ireland
In that Irish Times interview in 2023, Farage revealed a lot about his relationship with this island, including his relationship with Sinn Féin president Mary Lou McDonald, who was an MEP between 2004 and 2009. He says of McDonald: “We always got on well when she was in Europe.”
During the 2008 and 2009 Lisbon Treaty referendums, Farage travelled to Ireland to encourage a ‘no’ vote, sharing platforms with McDonald. He later recalled using EU money to produce an anti-Lisbon leaflet which was delivered to almost every household in Ireland.
After the second referendum passed in 2009, Farage said: “I guess history may well look back upon this day as being the day when the very short, brief period of Irish independence actually ended.”
On the 1916 Easter Rising, the Clacton MP spoke sympathetically, stating that the British government had “f***ed it up” and questioned whether executing its leaders had unnecessarily fuelled Irish nationalism.
Of former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Farage claimed that he and the former Fine Gael leader “had some fun once or twice” and that Varadkar “even asked me for a selfie”.
‘Up the ra Nigel?’
When he was ‘retired’ from politics, the Reform leader decided to follow many celebrities and read out messages in return for cash payments on the Cameo website.
Farage subsequently spent the Covid years reading out requests including wishing someone a happy birthday by saluting and saying “up the ra”, and unwittingly recording a message apparently intended to invoke Gerry Adams, complete with reference to a fictitious ‘tiocfaidh ár lá’ bar “in Brighton”.
Farage was infamously called out on this by RTÉ presenter Claire Byrne in a 2021 television interview. Farage was calling for Ireland to leave the European Union: “Why don’t you ask yourselves in Dublin the question – why did you fight the British? Why did Irish nationalists fight the British for 500 [sic] years?” Farage said.
Interjecting to play the infamous video, Byrne then said: “Up the ra, Nigel? I mean I know you said sorry, I know that you get 87 quid, that’s entirely within your rights to do that.”
Farage presents as a schoolboy messer who often lacks serious political conviction. It is difficult to believe, given his Irish ancestry, Irish marriage, close dealings with members of Sinn Féin, and long political engagement with Ireland, that he did not understand the significance of ‘up the ra’.
The more convincing explanation is that, in his mind, the allure of money, combined with the controversial nature of the remarks, simply outweighs the risk of looking foolish.
In this context, if Farage does indeed end up at the British Prime Minister, it is entirely possible that Farage could become the British leader who ends the partition of Ireland. Whether any of this happens, in the end, remains to be seen.
