Nigel Farage and Prince Harry share a common enemy: the free press

Writing for Bloomberg Opinion, Martin Ivens draws an unlikely parallel between Nigel Farage and Prince Harry, both of whom blame "the Establishment" or the press for troubles of their own making. Farage faces scrutiny over undisclosed donations and links to a convicted fraudster, while Harry lost a costly privacy lawsuit against the Daily Mail's publisher. Ivens argues both cases ultimately vindicate a free press's role in holding the powerful to account. For South Africans, where press freedom battles its own pressures - from political intimidation to funding crises - Ivens' piece is a useful reminder of why scrutiny of the powerful matters, regardless of who's complaining..By Martin Ivens.Whenever there’s bad news, shoot the messenger. Last week Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, Britain’s hard-right populist party, found himself in an unlikely alliance with Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex and second son of King Charles III. Both men share an animating passion: They blame the press or “the Establishment” for the wholly avoidable messes they have got themselves into.The claims of a media vendetta against an exiled royal and the tough head of a populist party would be laughable if the creeping threat to press freedom in the UK from that same political establishment were not so troubling. Many members of Parliament, especially in a left-of-center government, have been itching for an excuse to regulate the right-leaning press for years. Fortunately, Farage and Harry’s missteps have made that a little less likely.Reform’s leader resigned his Clacton seat last week to fight a by-election as the wronged victim of stories about his political donations — “a stitch-up” say his allies — adopting the media-baiting tactics of his friend Donald Trump. However, the other political parties have chosen not to take part in this spurious contest, so he now squares off against Count Binface, a joke candidate dressed in a superhero suit with a trash-can fixed to his head. Hardly the clash of titans Farage was looking for.Meanwhile, Harry has lost an ill-advised £50 million ($67 million) lawsuit about press intrusion against Associated Newspapers, owner of the Daily Mail. He denounced the court’s verdict as “a complete whitewash” — an insult to an independent judiciary that could have sprung from the mouth of any populist.“It’s not the public’s business,” was Farage’s dismissive response in a similar vein to reports that he had been given £5 million by a crypto-currency billionaire. But in a democracy it is everyone’s business to know whether such a generous gift to a politician who could well become the UK’s next prime minister came with strings attached.Farage declines to accept that he had any duty to declare the gift, arguing that he was not campaigning for power at the time. That is a manner by which money has often flowed to political parties and individuals. His decision to recontest his Clacton seat was intended to preempt an ongoing parliamentary inquiry into his propriety and — as he sees it — appeal directly to the people over the heads of a prurient media. But the trickle of stories about his party’s finances is becoming a flood.The Sunday Times has reported that Farage accepted security, staff and the use of a five-story Mayfair mansion from convicted fraudster, George Cottrell, known for his family’s landed connections as “Posh George”. An aristocrat who seems to hail from the pages of Evelyn Waugh or PG Wodehouse’s satires on the British upper class, Cottrell naturally invites curiosity.Reform said no rules had been broken, and Farage voiced his outrage at the press coverage, although senior party figures had attended the glitzy launch in February of Cottrell’s book, How to Launder Money — whose sub-head is the rather tamer: A Guide for Law Enforcement, Prosecutors and Policymakers. Cottrell, who calls Farage “Daddy,” knows his subject. He once promised to launder $20,000 proffered by FBI agents posing as drug dealers and wound up in a federal penitentiary.Farage has responded to all the unwelcome attention with a series of Trump-like attacks on the objectivity of reporters and editors. The Sunday Times journalist Gabriel Pogrund has been dubbed by Reform as a Labour stooge for his Posh George scoop. He is in fact the co-author of a biography of Keir Starmer, which took a blowtorch to the Labour prime minister’s reputation. Farage underestimates how most journalists, outside an activist fringe, just want to get the best stories.In contrast, Prince Harry has genuine grievances about outrageous press intrusion on his privacy as a young man — and that of his late mother, Diana. Multiple media outfits, not just tabloid newspapers but also the BBC, were unscrupulous in their gathering of royal and celebrity stories until they were brought to heel by a flurry of lawsuits and under threat of statutory press regulation. But that era came to an end about 15 years ago.Last week the High Court ruled that the 57 allegations of press intrusion by Associated’s newspapers were without foundation. Little meaningful evidence was presented — more of it was hearsay. Any person protective of their family’s privacy deserves consideration, although Harry’s own complain-and-tell autobiography, Spare, hardly failed to spare the blushes of friends, family and retainers.Farage’s youthful political hero, Enoch Powell, the Tory intellectual turned rabble-rouser, used to say, “For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship's captain complaining about the sea.” Good leaders navigate the storms stirred up by an unpredictable media. That, however, was the wisdom of a bygone age. Today thin-skinned politicians and powerful men and women wage war on the newspapers when they can’t bypass them. In America, Trump’s campaign of intimidation has bent some media outlets to his will or reduced their critical clout..Read more:.Reform UK overtakes Tories as Badenoch faces Farage threat – Rosa Prince.Here, Harry and Farage have collided with a long, irreverent tradition of testing the version important people in public life want us to believe about themselves — or leave unearthed. That tradition has been built without the rights given by the US First Amendment, but it is nonetheless vital. Although the intrusions Farage and Harry complain about might at times be irksome, they are ultimately about giving ordinary people insights into those who hold privilege, by birth or political ascent. That is not the “establishment” plotting against them. It is the daylight a free press lets in on the mighty. Long may it remain so..© 2026 Bloomberg L.P..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox every morning on weekdays. Register here.Support South Africa's bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here.

Nigel Farage and Prince Harry share a common enemy: the free press

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