Farage, Nigel Paul [key], 1964–, British political leader. A commodities trader and long a Euroskeptic, he was a member of the Conservative party until 1992, when Prime Minister John Major signed the Maastricht Treaty, which created the European Union. He became (2003) a founding member of the UK Independence party (UKIP), and then its leader (2006–9, 2010–16). An outspoken member (1999–) of the European Parliament (EP), he has served as chairman of its Euroskeptic, populist Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy grouping (2009–). A long-time proponent of Britain's quitting the EU, Farage campaigned strongly, sometimes controversially, and ultimately successfully for a “Brexit” yes vote in the country's 2016 referendum. He quit UKIP in 2018 as it embraced more extremist positions. In 2019 he established the Brexit party, which displaced UKIP and became the largest party in the EP after the 2019 elections, but it failed to win a seat in the British parliamentary elections at year's end.
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