‘Britain is Broken’: Farage Broadcasts Political TV Ad, And It’s Five Minutes of Silence

Brexit leader Nigel Farage debuted his party’s latest political ad on Thursday night, and broke with convention by broadcasting only one image with no sound for nearly five minutes.

Political advertisements on television are illegal in the United Kingdom, except for a handful of strictly regulated broadcast slots allocated to parties by the government known as ‘party political broadcasts’. The restrictive format prevents particularly well-funded parties from saturating the airwaves.

By convention, these party political ads are information dense blasts typically accompanied by emotive music and in past vote cycles have been election-defining, such as in 1997 when the theme tune to the Labour Party broadcast became emblematic of their landslide victory.

Nigel Farage’s Reform Party had one of their scheduled broadcasts tonight and breaking with that convention, it broadcast a black screen with simple text reading “Britain is Broken. Britain Needs Reform.”

The image remained static for five minutes and was silent, giving viewers plenty of time to reflect. Farage said of the spot: “Your TV isn’t broken, but Britain is. I hope you enjoy our Party Election Broadcast.”

Earlier in the day, he had teased the release of the TV spot, writing: “I’m amazed it even got past compliance, but we did it. You won’t want to miss this.”