Is Mr Farage a racist?

Is Mr Farage a racist? As an MEP he sits with Far Right parties. He refers to Enoch Powell as a 'great man'. He feels "uncomfortable" when on a train where he can hear no English being spoken, and has said he does not want to live “in a country where people speak different languages”. He believes there is a difference between living next to Romanians and living next to Germans, but is afraid to spell it out ("You know what the difference is," he tells the interviewer).

Mr Farage has the common touch, but has led a privileged life. The son of a stockbroker he was educated at Dulwich College. His house is worth £500K, he has said his EU salary and expenses were worth £250K a year given “all the games you could play”, not to mention his wife's £30K a year. Yet he claims to be poor.

He has refused to allow his expenses as an MEP to be audited, echoing Mr Trump's break with Presidential tradition. He set up an overseas trust fund to avoid tax despite declaring, "rich people, successful companies evading tax, which of course is a problem, avoiding tax". He pays fees for his public appearances into a company so that he need only pay 20% tax on them. As a businessman he was company secretary to a family business that was wound up owing £170,000 to creditors.

He has lied about the aim of the Leave campaign, and the cost of leaving. He's still at it - only a few weeks ago he claimed Article 50 said the UK didn't have to pay anything to leave the EU.

A racist? An elitist? Certainly he demonises foreignness, and believes some people are more foreign than others. Hardly what we want in a leader if we are trying to forge trade relationships with any country that will deal with us.