Nigel Farage, the man who arguably was the driving force behind Brexit, resigned on Tuesday from the UK Independence Party which he co-founded and turned into an influential force in British politics as its leader for nearly a decade.
"With a heavy heart, I am leaving Ukip. It is not the Brexit party our nation so badly needs," Mr Farage wrote in a column for The Daily Telegraph.
Mr Farage, who quit as party leader in 2016 but stayed on as a card-carrying member, fell out with the current leadership after it appointed a far-right activist and convicted criminal Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson as an adviser last month.
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Read more:
Ukip shows its true face with Tommy Robinson's appointment
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Mr Farage, who has himself been accused of fomenting far-right views, said that at a Ukip conference this year he was confronted by “several angry young men... who all seemed to be obsessed with Islam and Tommy Robinson”.
“The party of elections is quickly becoming a party of street activism, with our members being urged to attend marches rather than taking the fight to the ballot box,” he wrote.
Mr Farage co-founded the party and has represented Ukip in the European Parliament – a job he will lose when Britain withdraws from the European Union.
He is also a radio host in Britain and a commentator for Fox News, building on a bond with President Donald Trump forged during the US election campaign.
Brexit has been the 54-year-old former trader’s dream ever since leaving the Conservatives in 1992 following the signing of the Maastricht Treaty, which deepened European integration.
Mr Farage spent nearly three decades undermining European institutions and mocking its leading lights, a mission that culminated with the 2016 referendum to leave the EU.
He stepped down as party leader after the vote, explaining that “my political ambition has been achieved”.
He will stay on as deputy chairman of Leave Means Leave, a pro-Brexit campaign group.
Mr Farage was born in 1964 to an affluent family in Kent, south-east England. His stockbroker father was an alcoholic, and Mr Farage's parents divorced when he was five.
He was educated at one of England’s top private schools, Dulwich College in London, before becoming a commodities trader.
He has had three brushes with death. In 1985, he was hit by a car after a night out, suffering serious head and leg injuries. Months later, he had a cancerous testicle removed.
Once recovered, he married his nurse, and the couple had two sons. Following their divorce in 1997, Farage married second wife Kirsten Mehr, a German national, with whom he has two daughters.
The couple has since announced they are separating.
Mr Farage’s most recent scare came in 2010 when a light aircraft in which he was campaigning on election day crashed on take-off after a banner got caught in its propeller, but he escaped with broken bones and a punctured lung.
His political destiny was cast with the co-founding of Ukip in 1993, and with his election to the European Parliament in 1999, aged 35.
He became Ukip’s leader in 2006 before standing down in 2009 and then being re-elected the following year, stamping his charisma and anti-establishment humour on the party as it soared in popularity.
The party won the most British seats in European Parliament elections in 2014, although Mr Farage himself never managed to get elected as an MP at home despite repeated attempts.
With the party’s image and Mr Farage becoming intertwined, and with the Brexit vote achieved, Ukip faced a vacuum of leadership and identity.
Much of his appeal lay with his carefully cultivated ‘everyman’ image, the result of many hours spent swilling pints of ale down at the pub, cigarette in hand.
Voted 'Briton of 2014' by The Times, Mr Farage maintained a high profile before the referendum but was kept out of the official pro-Brexit campaign, which feared his brand was too divisive.
The Brexit vote helped vindicate some of Mr Farage’s methods, but came at a price.
“During the referendum I said I wanted my country back ... now I want my life back,” Mr Farage said when he resigned as leader two years ago.
Company%C2%A0profile
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In numbers
1,000 tonnes of waste collected daily:
- 800 tonnes converted into alternative fuel
- 150 tonnes to landfill
- 50 tonnes sold as scrap metal
800 tonnes of RDF replaces 500 tonnes of coal
Two conveyor lines treat more than 350,000 tonnes of waste per year
25 staff on site
Top%2010%20most%20competitive%20economies
%3Cp%3E1.%20Singapore%0D%3Cbr%3E2.%20Switzerland%0D%3Cbr%3E3.%20Denmark%0D%3Cbr%3E4.%20Ireland%0D%3Cbr%3E5.%20Hong%20Kong%0D%3Cbr%3E6.%20Sweden%0D%3Cbr%3E7.%20UAE%0D%3Cbr%3E8.%20Taiwan%0D%3Cbr%3E9.%20Netherlands%0D%3Cbr%3E10.%20Norway%0D%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Indoor Cricket World Cup
Venue Insportz, Dubai, September 16-23
UAE squad Saqib Nazir (captain), Aaqib Malik, Fahad Al Hashmi, Isuru Umesh, Nadir Hussain, Sachin Talwar, Nashwan Nasir, Prashath Kumara, Ramveer Rai, Sameer Nayyak, Umar Shah, Vikrant Shetty
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950