Farage defends common man image

Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has defended his ‘man of the people’ image after being challenged over his public school education and career in finance.

Mr Farage was questioned after pledging to target working-class voters in Labour areas at upcoming European election.

The former Ukip leader attended fee-paying Dulwich College before working as a commodities trader for a series of international banks and financial services firms.

“I was never in banking, next question,” he told one journalist. When pressed, he added: “I did have a private school education - you can’t choose your parents, you can’t choose your name.

“Mine called me Nigel and we’ve got a female candidate with an even more difficult name.

“The things that unite people across the spectrums, across the classes, across the racial divide, and indeed across the religious divide as well, and it is a belief that nation state democracy is the right way to live your life.”

Meanwhile, Mr Farage was urged to keep a place open on the Brexit Party candidates list by a man who turned up to yesterday’s event in London on a pennyfarthing.

Its owner, 65-year-old former helicopter pilot Alan Price from Battersea, said he would represent the 35 million bikers, bicyclists and penny-farthing riders in the UK who had been “harassed and excessively regulated” by the EU.

We as a group are massively in support of Brexit,” he said.

Mr Price said he was “slightly to the right of Genghis Khan” and had played penny-farthing polo in front of the Queen two years ago.”

He said: “Democracy has failed because we voted out and we want out. I have a personal interest in excessive taxation and bicycle tyres but there are also plenty of other laws about kettles and everything else.”