How much? Artist offered eye-watering sum to burn Farage portrait

A Dutch businessman offered to buy a portrait of Nigel Farage – just so that he could “burn it publicly”.

David Griffiths, one of Wales’ most well-known portrait painters, had struggled to sell a portrait of the former Brexit Party leader for £25,000 at the Royal Academy’s summer exhibition in 2018.

But he did receive one “bizarre” offer for the painting, which he detailed in his new autobiography. He wrote: “Without a doubt the most bizarre reaction I had to the painting was a businessman from the Netherlands who wanted to purchase the painting for the sole intention of burning it publicly, as a publicity stunt!”

Meanwhile an anti-Brexit political campaign group sent a timely reminder to Farage as Boris Johnson prepares to send the army to solve the ongoing fuel crisis.

Led By Donkeys reminded the public of a tweet the former Brexit Party leader put out in 2017. “If Brexit is a disaster, I will go and live abroad, I’ll go and live somewhere else,” Farage said at the time.

According to the EU’s former chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, petrol shortages in the UK are a “direct consequence” of Brexit. Earlier this month, a video of Farage dismissing the threat of Brexit-caused food shortages as “utter tosh” resurfaced.

In a 2019 interview with ITV’s Robert Peston, Farage was told that Operation Yellowhammer – the government’s ‘No Deal’ planning report – predicted potential shortages of food and medicines, as well as chaos for British people living in the EU.

“Why on earth would anybody vote for that?,” Peston asked.

Farage replied: “I’ve never seen such utter tosh in my entire life. Unlike the civil servants sitting in Whitehall, I spent 20 years in international trade, buying and selling goods and shipping them all over the world.

“The idea, given that there are over 100 active ports in the United Kingdom, that even if there was a problem at Dover, that there would be food shortages, is complete and utter rubbish, it’s Project Fear, it should be utterly, completely, totally, disregarded.”

But recent months have seen warnings that shortages of Christmas food are expected this year, with meat such as turkeys and pigs in blankets under threat.

And poultry magnate Ranjit Singh Boparan warned Brexit may lead to the worst food shortages since the war. He said labour shortages are pushing his industry to a “crisis point”, according to Metro.

Around 100,000 truck drivers, previously made up primarily of eastern Europeans, have left the government desperately trying to fill the vacancies.

Andra Maciuca

Andra is a multilingual, award-winning NQJ senior journalist and the UK’s first Romanian representing co-nationals in Britain and reporting on EU citizens for national news. She is interested in UK, EU and Eastern European affairs, EU citizens in the UK, British citizens in the EU, environmental reporting, ethical consumerism and corporate social responsibility. She has contributed articles to VICE, Ethical Consumer and The New European and likes writing poetry, singing, songwriting and playing instruments. She studied Journalism at the University of Sheffield and has a Masters in International Business and Management from the University of Manchester. Follow her on: