20161130_NX

Source: News Xchange, YouTube

URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfajEW_BNSo

Date: 30/11/2016

Event: Farage: media "completely out of touch" on climate change

Credit: News Xchange, YouTube channel RobinHoodUKIP

People:

• Nigel Farage: MEP for South East England, former leader of UKIP

[This is a partial transcript of a speech made by Nigel Farage on 30 November 2016 at the News Xchange conference in Copenhagen. The beginning of Nigel Farage's speech and a section in the middle are missing.]

Nigel Farage: ... the entire Western world, in my opinion. For me - well, Nick did allude to the fact that I've had one or two ups and downs getting to this position, but for me, yeah, it's been a 25-year journey. I was a businessman, I got into politics because I felt that our political class were completely out of touch with the people, frankly, that drank in my village pub - just ordinary folk who were all pro-European but none of whom actually wanted us to be governed from Brussels. So that was my motivation to get involved in this, and I think, yeah, 2016 has been the year of political revolution, it' s been the year of the outsiders.

But remember, what made Brexit happen and what got Trump elected were a lot of little people who don't normally vote at all but have simply had enough and want to vote for change. They feel they've been talked down to. They feel they've been sneered at, and I think what this conference needs to face up to is it's not just the political class that increasingly is treated with contempt by the broader public across the West - actually the national broadcasters, and the rest of the media too, are being I'm afraid viewed in the same way. You are now on a par with the political class - how about that. It's not a great place to be, is it.

And the internet poses you a real, real challenge. Now, let me be clear, the internet - from my perspective, we would never ever have got UKIP off the ground, we would never have been any more than a little fringe party had it not been for YouTube taking off in 2007 and 2008, at a time when whatever I did in the European Parliament in Brussels or Strasbourg - and those that have seen what I do there, I make very helpful...

[There is a break in the video, here.]

... big issues that you guys need to think very hard about. The European question is one of them - we've shown with Brexit what is possible, and there are now many countries across the European Union seriously questioning their future in this project. I think, in terms of immigration, I think you're still, many of you, covering this subject in the way that anyone that dares to raise the issue somehow has malevolent intentions underneath, which, in the vast majority of cases, simply isn't true.

I think the coverage of radical Islam is another area where you're completely losing touch with vast swathes of your own population. In fact, in fact, it happens in politics too - dear Hillary couldn't even bring herself to say "radical Islam", she couldn't even use the term.

And lastly, where I believe you're really getting completely out of touch, is on your coverage of the issue of climate change. And I say this with particular reference to the wind industry. I've seen dozens of reports on British media about a new wind farm that is being built on an upland moor or being built at sea - we're told how wonderful this is, how it's going to reduce CO2 emissions and this new wind farm will power a city the size of Birmingham.

And what we don't get told is when the wind doesn't blow, it won't even power a single kettle. What we don't get told is that none of this can be done without vast taxpayer subsidy. What we don't get told is that actually wind energy - and renewables - has led to one of the greatest transfers of wealth, from the poor to the rich, that we've seen in modern times. I haven't heard any of that in the United Kingdom, and I doubt there's much of it in your countries too. And increasingly, people are wondering why their electricity bills are as high as they are.

So I do think this industry needs to press the reset button. And finally, I have to say, that on Trump, it wasn't just you that was wrong - everybody was wrong, but I had a very good bet at 5 to 1, and I've enjoyed 2016, even if you haven't. You have got to change, otherwise you'll come back here in five years' time, and there'll be fewer of you. Thank you.

[Audience applause.]