#12DaysOfChristmas: ‘Never done a proper job in their lives’ #Farage #Brexit

It says a lot about 2016 when the Oxford dictionary chooses ‘post-truth’ as their Word of the Year. Nigel Farage was one of the most prominent standard bearers of this ethos - where rhetoric won out over reason.

The UK referendum and the decision of the British electorate to support an exit from the EU was and will be one of the most defining events of 2016 and the years to come. A generally hostile or ill-informed media meant that the public were easily blindsided by arguments and “facts” that were at best misleading and at worst downright lies.

On 24 June, many British viewers were surprised when Nigel Farage coolly acknowledged that the figures on the side of the Vote Leave Brexit battle bus (£350 million for the NHS) could not be guaranteed and were in fact incorrect. While this particular figure was not part of the Leave.EU campaign, similar claims were made by Nigel Farage. What we do know is that the costs of Brexit will greatly outweigh any theoretical benefits.

Another example of Farage’s disregard and contempt for the facts was his claim in the European Parliament’s hemicycle following the UK’s referendum that MEPs had "never done a proper job in their lives". We decided to dig a little deeper and asked a random group of MEPs from different parties and countries what they had done before becoming an MEP. This was the result:

Over the twelve days of Christmas we are highlighting 12 videos from the past 12 months.

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