Claim eb11cb53Checked 21 Jul 2026
TrueOn the truth scale
“Farage's European Parliament constituency is vast.”
Reasoning & Evidence21 Jul 2026
The claim that Farage's European Parliament constituency was "vast" is accurate. Farage was an MEP for the South East England European Parliament constituency, which covered nine ceremonial counties (Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Surrey, and West Sussex). The most recent European election before the December 2011 interview was the 2009 election, for which the BBC reports the electorate was 6,231,875 — consistent with Farage's own figure of "six million voters." For comparison, a typical UK Westminster parliamentary constituency has around 70,000–90,000 electors, making this regional constituency roughly 70–80 times larger in terms of registered voters. The constituency also spanned a large geographic area and elected 10 MEPs. The characterization as "vast" is well-supported.
Sources: BBC News, "European Election 2009: South East" (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/elections/euro/09/html/ukregion_35.stm); Wikipedia, "South East England (European Parliament constituency)" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_East_England_(European_Parliament_constituency)); Kent Online, "Unravelling the facts behind the Euro elections" (https://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/unravelling-the-facts-behind-the-a97392/)
From article
It would be silly to say that – you could never, ever represent the whole country – and since I was elected to the European Parliament I’ve always said that I’m not going to represent the whole constituency (and remember it’s vast – six million voters), I’m there to represent the people who voted for me and to use that position to try to persuade others that we are actually right.
But the interesting thing about [the UK Independence Party] is that it attracts an incredibly diverse range of people. We pick up what I would call ‘patriotic Old Labour’, we pick up classical liberals who hate the big state and believe in individual freedom and we pick up traditional Tories who believe in the country. And don’t forget that when we started [in 1993], only about six of us in the country believed in this.
Sources opened