Nigel Farage will no longer write a regular column for the Telegraph, becoming the latest prominent rightwing figure to leave the title’s roster under its new ownership.
The Reform UK leader wrote for the broadsheet as recently as last week, condemning the first budget of Andy Burnham’s premiership and pledging to “scrap benefits for foreigners, abolish net zero targets” and “slash foreign aid”.
However, the Guardian understands that his contract to write regularly for the title is to end.
There appears to be a dispute over the reasons behind the termination of the contract, which paid Farage about £۴,۰۰۰ a month, according to the register of MPs’ financial interests.
Sources suggested that Axel Springer, the Telegraph’s new German owner, has decided not to renew it.
However, sources close to Farage said the Reform leader submitted his resignation on Friday, as he did not like the direction that the Telegraph was moving in.
The news comes after it emerged last week that Allison Pearson, a writer firmly on the right wing of the Telegraph’s regular columnists, was understood to be in negotiations about leaving the title.
The end of Farage’s regular column will further fuel speculation over the political direction of the Telegraph under Axel Springer. It is hoping to use the title to make inroads into the US market as a centre-right, pro-free speech challenger to the Wall Street Journal.
It also comes after concern from some inside the Telegraph over its links to Reform UK. The title has traditionally been closely associated with the Conservative party.
There was unease among some staff about Reform’s repeated use of the Telegraph for “spoiler” stories: a media tactic designed to pre-empt a problematic story by placing a more sympathetic version with a rival title.
Some insiders also disapproved of a piece about a journalist travelling to Britain on a small boat. It later emerged the journalist in question was a Reform member and activist.
The paper also features columns by former Sunday Times political editor Isabel Oakeshott, the partner of Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, and an open supporter of many Reform UK policies.
Farage’s previous columns have urged Telegraph readers to “vote Reform and help me help you get our country back”, warning them it could be their “last chance”.
Another defended Reform’s acceptance of two unprecedented £۳۶m donations from the crypto billionaires Ben Delo and Christopher Harborne.
“Both donors have stated plainly that they want nothing in return,” he wrote. “No peerage, no knighthood, no government contracts. They simply believe Britain needs change and that Reform UK is the only party prepared to deliver it.”
The end of Farage’s regular column-writing comes as Axel Springer has set out plans for mass redundancies across the business, including the newsroom. Its sports and culture sections appear to have been hit hard.
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The cuts have angered staff after earlier suggestions from Mathias Döpfner, the billionaire chief executive of Axel Springer, that the titles could not cut their way to growth.
Many expect the cuts to be soon accompanied by plans to grow the Telegraph’s operations in the US, though many staff have been confused by the strategy set out so far.
Farage’s departure follows anger on the right and among Pearson’s supporters over the apparent decision to end her column.
Alex Phillips, a former Brexit party politician and current presenter on Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV, said the Telegraph was “a political bloodbath with some of the most talented leading commentators of our day brutally axed before the paper veers left”.
“Wake up,” she wrote. “The long slow communist takeover of Europe is currently on steroids.”
It appears that the Telegraph will also stop publishing Pearson’s podcast Planet Normal, which she co-hosts with economics writer Liam Halligan. Halligan announced his Sunday Telegraph column had also been scrapped as part of Axel Springer’s cuts.
A Telegraph source said they were not able to comment on individual employment matters.
The Telegraph Media Group’s latest accounts showed it had slumped to a £۴m loss last year as a result of legal fees connected to its lengthy ownership saga and the revaluing of assets. Its revenue had also fallen slightly from ۲۰۲۴ to £۲۷۳.۲m.
However, the accounts of Telegraph Media Group Holdings also revealed it had made an underlying pre-tax operating profit of about £۴۸m.
