This year’s I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here! has been a tough watch, mostly because former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has managed to stay in the jungle for over a week now largely unquestioned on his controversial views.
Where Fred Sirieix and Nella Rose made some headway asking about his right-wing political opinions in early episodes, much of the season has seen the 59-year-old continue his mission to rehabilitate his image with the British public unscathed. ICYMI, Farage cynically admitted that he wanted to ‘reach a whole new audience’ with I’m A Celebrity early on, complaining that without being nominated for bushtucker trials he would lose 25% of his airtime.
Last night though, French maître d'hôtel Fred took things up a notch, questioning Nigel once again about his love of Brexit. ‘Nigel, you destroyed the economy,’ Fred said during a conversation about politics. ‘One thing they said during the Brexit vote is “We’re going to get £350 million a week that we can redirect to the NHS and build new hospitals and free care and all that”. Never happened.’
‘What’s the three benefits of Brexit?’ Fred asked.
‘Self-government,’ Nigel replied. ‘Hopefully, take back our territory over waters [and] the nuclear submarine deal with Australia could not have been done as an EU member because France already had a contract.’
Fred was quick to reply that the UK was already self-governed, that territory over waters is not a tangible benefit to the British public and that the UK could’ve done the trade deal on nuclear submarines with France. For reference, the submarine deal refers to the US, UK, and Australia (Aukus) pact which will create new nuclear-powered submarines aimed at countering China’s influence in the Indonesian-Pacific region. The deal is controversial for its potential to create more tension with China, but UK and US officials have insisted the deal is about nuclear power, not nuclear arms.
‘The point about it is we can make a mess of it ourselves if we choose to,’ Nigel said. To which Fred quickly replied, ‘And that’s what we are doing.’
The disagreement has since caused debate online, with Fred applauded by viewers for challenging Nigel on his often-blanket political statements.
Of course, many have also pointed out that the burden of countering Nigel Farage’s wildly controversial opinions shouldn’t lie on Fred’s shoulders. It’s clear no one else in the camp is comfortable debating politics with Nigel, and why would they be? None of them are as well-versed in the world of political debating as Nigel, and most are not armed with political facts and figures to ensure a fair conversation is had on national television. The fact that most of them are nervous to even question Farage’s history of controversial statementsis understandable then, and just makes Fred even more impressive for choosing to have the conversations anyway.
Beyond that, it’s quite interesting that Nigel chooses to discredit Fred’s opinions by framing him as a stubborn and emphatic leftie who can’t see past emotion – is he nervous that his one contender on politics could break apart his PR plan for image rehabilitation? It certainly seems so.