Still just ‘helping out’ your foxy friend, Nigel?
Ex-Ukip leader denied affair and said he’d given temporary refuge to chic French politician – but look who’s popped out from his bachelor pad
FORMER Ukip leader Nigel Farage today faces new questions over his relationship with a glamorous French politician 16 years his junior, after she was seen at his £4 million bachelor pad last weekend.
Laure Ferrari, the head of a thinktank at the centre of an investigation into alleged illegal funding of his party, was seen coming out of his house in West London – nearly two months after The Mail on Sunday first revealed that they had been sharing the property.
At the time, Farage told the MoS that suggestions they were lovers were ‘crackers’ and that he was just providing Ms Ferrari with ‘short-term’ help. He said: ‘She is someone I have worked with and known for a long time who wanted somewhere to stay for a week that wouldn’t cost her any money. It’s a working relationship. You can inflate it however you want to.’
Last night Mr Farage, who celebrates his 53rd birthday tomorrow, confirmed that Ms Ferrari had stayed at his home last weekend, and repeated his denial that they were having an affair. He said she was based in Paris, but sometimes
‘We even joked about a quickie in the toilet’
stayed with him ‘ when she is in London’, adding: ‘So what?’
Ms Ferrari, 37, who first became involved in politics as a result of a chance meeting with Mr Farage ten years ago while she was working as a waitress in Strasbourg, is the executive director of the Institute for Direct Democracy in Europe (IDDE).
Last November, the Electoral Commission announced it was opening an i nvestigation i nto whether Ukip had accepted ‘impermissible donations’ from IDDE and the Alliance for Direct Democracy in Europe (ADDE), the political party to which it is affiliated.
It followed an audit by the European Parliament which concluded that ADDE and IDDE used EU grant funding for the benefit of Ukip in breach of its rules, though the claims have been strongly contested by Ukip.
Last Saturday, Ms Ferrari was spotted at about 11am leaving Mr Farage’s rented home in Chelsea by a back door before being photographed buying newspapers in a shop a few minutes’ walk away.
She was then seen returning to the three-storey Georgian house, entering through the same door. About ten minutes later, Mr Farage was spotted going out the same way, hurrying into a chauffeurdriven Land Rover Discovery and being driven away.
In another twist, a porn star told a national newspaper that Mr Farage, who is married but separated from his German-born wife Kirsten, had ‘snogged and groped’ her during a flight from the US to Britain last month. The model, Valerie Fox, who has appeared in several adult films, said she found herself sitting next to him in the first-class cabin of a Virgin Atlantic overnight flight as he returned to Heathrow from Atlanta, Georgia, ten days ago.
The Sun reported claims they had flirted before he ‘smothered’ her with kisses and fondled her.
Ms Fox was quoted as saying: ‘He had absolutely no qualms about anyone else seeing us together. Our hands were everywhere. We even joked about having a quickie in the toilet but the cabin crew were constantly around. We thought they were genuinely checking we didn’t join the mile-high club.’
The paper said after the flight, Mr Farage gave Ms Fox a lift to her flat. Mr Farage said last night: ‘A person you meet on a plane gets overfriendly with you and you drop them off and that is the end of it. If you are well- known, people are coming up to you all the time.’
He added that the advances had come from Ms Fox and that ‘it’s all a set-up, isn’t it?’