It always strikes me that whenever I speak to even the most vaguely eurosceptic Conservative, or for that matter Labour supporter, there is near enough always a grudging admiration for Nigel Farage.

Perhaps I am biased -- after all he is the guy who inspired me to get off my backside and involved in politics. But he is the only politician I’m aware of who scores regular viral hits with his speeches. The latest one, in which he exposes the EU-inflicted economic mess, has registered over 115,000 views in just over 24 hours. Who else garners this kind of reaction regularly? No one.

Of course many boring, pedantic lefties dismiss Farage’s verbal smackdowns as beneath them. But in reality, they contain economic understanding that speaks for those who actually understand international finance. The pro-EU cartel find themselves in such a mess precisely because their thinking with the euro was always political and not based on economic reality. Today, the people suffer the consequences. One gets the feeling that Farage’s speeches encompass a sort of pent up feeling that many rightly feel is unrepresented in the UK.

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After all, it is now well established, by a number of different polls, that we are a majority anti-EU nation as far as the public goes -- or very, very close to it. Yet the case for leaving the EU outright is rarely heard on TV, radio or in Parliament. Despite the EU costing the taxpayer billions, despite its constant interference in our internal affairs, and despite its destruction of our democracy, Cameron, Clegg and Miliband line up to defend it at every turn. Just as Brown did. And Blair. And Major. 

The instincts of the British public know that this EU project is so very wrong that when Farage’s two or three minute speeches tear into this established wisdom with such passion and conviction, it riles the spirit and captures the imagination. I cannot be alone in thinking this; the YouTube numbers speak for themselves. So too, I should add, do the comments that appear underneath these videos.

Far from being cheered on by a bunch of xenophobic, English right-wingers as The Guardian would have you believe, ordinary citizens from Poland, Greece, Germany and right across Europe stop by to thank Nigel Farage for speaking up for them as despairing Europeans. Often they speak of their desire to have their very own Nigel Farage to cheer on; to vote for.

Farage's speeches are a phenomenon in this digital age of politics that breakthrough in such a way that a pre-scripted, back-and-forth PMQ’s never has and never will. Perhaps if other politicians spoke without shackles, with real conviction rather than pre-filtered buzzwords, the public would be a bit more interested. 

Michael Heaver is a UKIP activist and blogger. He tweets at @Michael_Heaver