Sacrifice

Nigel Farage, fresh from defending his right to say appalling things with a smirk, has now declared that men are more deserving of top jobs because they’re willing to "sacrifice their family lives" in pursuit of success. Not that it’s phrased as abandonment, mind you – it’s painted as valour. The selfless executive trudging out the front door while the toddler reaches out for one last cuddle. You can almost hear the Elgar swelling in the background. Heroism, thy name is Dad’s empty chair.

Let’s unpick that, shall we? Because it’s not the man who’s sacrificed – it’s the bloody family. It’s the kids who don’t see their father from one end of the week to the next. It’s the partner – usually female – who juggles school runs, sleepless nights, and the slow erosion of her own career because someone has to hold the fort while the other one plays at being indispensable in a lanyard. This isn't noble. It’s a system that rewards neglect and calls it ambition.

And let’s be clear: the man made a choice. That’s what this “sacrifice” really is – an option taken, not a price extracted. He chooses to pursue advancement over presence. He chooses the promotion, the bonus, the long hours. The family doesn’t get a vote. They are the sacrifice. They pay for his decision, often in silence, with lost time and frayed connections, while he’s applauded for being the one who had to "make the hard call".

But according to Nigel, this is why men naturally rise to the top – because they’re willing to ditch their families and flog themselves for the paycheque. Women, in contrast, make "different life choices", which is the polite way of saying "they’re not heartless enough to sod off and call it sacrifice".

What he’s really saying, of course, is that the system is fine as it is. That if women aren’t at the top in equal numbers, it’s not because they’ve been structurally excluded, overlooked, underpaid, underestimated, or funnelled into part-time roles to keep the wheels turning at home – it’s because they’re just not trying hard enough. Or worse, they’re being "given privileges" under the guise of diversity and inclusion. As if the playing field has ever been level.

Let’s remember, this is the same man who praised Donald Trump for scrapping DEI policies. According to Nigel, these are dreadful things that hand out jobs based on skin colour or sexuality, as if HR departments across the land are doling out directorships in some sort of progressive raffle. In truth, DEI programmes exist to counteract centuries of structural inequality. But Farage doesn’t see inequality – he just sees competition. And when you're on the side that’s historically had a 3–0 head start and you’re still being caught up, you call foul.

Asked why business was historically dominated by white men, Farage replied, with all the insight of a drunk uncle at a wedding, that it was because "the country was white men". Not “run by”, you’ll note. Not “stacked in favour of”. No, apparently Britain was just white men, wall to wall, presumably springing fully formed from the soil with a briefcase and a Brylcreemed side parting. Women, it seems, were off-screen. Minor characters in their own households, raising children and propping up the nation without so much as a footnote. Empire, war, science, trade – all carried out by men who, if you believe Nigel, built it all unaided while the womenfolk stuck to sponge cakes and sewing.

And when he finally points to a woman in his own party – their by-election candidate – he’s quick to assure us she wasn’t picked because she’s a woman. Heaven forbid. Just the best person for the job. It’s always funny how they say that when the entire party is 100 percent male in Parliament. Apparently there’s been no woman in the entire country, until now, who made the grade. Not one. What rotten luck.

This isn’t about fairness. It never is. It’s about preserving the illusion that those at the top are there because they’re just that brilliant, and that any attempt to open the door to others is an attack on "merit". But the truth is, if the playing field were genuinely level – if sacrifice meant something different, if childcare and emotional labour were properly valued, if success didn’t demand stepping over your own children to reach it – then a lot of the men currently running things might look a bit less like visionary leaders and a bit more like blokes who got lucky.

Farage doesn’t want to dismantle unfairness. He wants to rebrand it as tradition. And if that means romanticising the lonely office hero who hasn’t been to a school concert in ten years, well, pass him a biscuit. But don’t pretend it’s sacrifice when it’s really abdication – and don’t forget who’s left paying for it.