WHEN Piers Morgan calls someone “authentic”, you know we’re in trouble. Piers is a good broadcaster, but one thing is for sure, he’s no judge of character.

As far as the morning TV host is concerned, Nigel Farage is “authentic”, with a “passion” to restore democracy to all Leave voters left in Brexit limbo by the inertia of the UK Government and Labour opposition. This will give Piers a more regular guest than his transatlantic pal who has only managed one soft-ball interview since assuming the Presidency.

So far, so sycophantic. But much as we like to ridicule the media for desperately sucking up to Farage, this argument of passion and unwavering commitment to the cause is gaining traction with certain members of the voting public.

Forget the empty manifesto, the dodgy funding and the contradictions of his background and motivations, Farage’s rejection of the “liberal elite” and our broken political system is striking a chord if the EU election predictions are anything to go by. Recent poll statistics make for frightening reading as the Brexit Party inches its way up the leader board. Farage continues to laugh all the way to the bank as his one trick act works its magic on a desperate and lost – and less than great – British public. And Morgan knows a potential winner when he sees one. Mind you for all Farage’s light-on-detail, heavy-on-rhetoric style of oratory and for all these alarmist articles and polls on the secret of his success, he’s running scared on confrontations that expose his weaknesses.

For instance, during the Marr interview last weekend, when a journalist finally asked him some hard-hitting questions that he couldn’t worm his way out of with a soundbite and cheeky selfie. Next up, he refuses to take on Change UK MP Heidi Allen’s challenge of a public debate – after all, what is there to debate when you have no policies or actual plans to enact the raison d’etre of your very existence.

It suits Farage far better to turn up at Brexit Party “rallies” with his earpiece and mic, where no-one would dream of challenging him in any shape or form, channelling Trump for all his might, like the warm-up act at Butlins before the main show.

The main show, of course, being disaster capitalism in action, the UK isolated from the rest of the world, a gaping chasm between the haves and have-nots, dodgy food from the US and a health care crisis with medicine shortages. Hard facts are difficult to turn into palatable soundbites. But then reality isn’t Farage’s strongest suit.

This is why all Farage’s media appearances are carefully controlled and meticulously choreographed. Just like his two-minute diatribes in Brussels on the occasions he actually decides to turn up at the European Parliament to earn his wage as an MEP. His whole media persona is aimed at easily digestible, angry, grievance-generating YouTube clips that spread the disease of his “us and them” populist-philosophy across the globe. And short appearances mean no in-depth analysis or tricky questions to answer.

It’s this “us and them” attitude that allows him to turn a blind eye to former Conservative Party members who have been suspended for Islamophobic comments joining the Brexit party. So much for Farage’s protestations that the Brexit Party would be “deeply intolerant of tolerance”! So much for distancing himself from the Tommy Robinson takeover of Ukip his original political outfit, now tossed away at the great jumble sale of his embarrassing political past. Now it turns out that the Brexit Party’s senior election agent, Noel Matthews, a former Kipper, is a fan of Mr Yaxley-Lennon and has even suggested that the concept of Islamophobia doesn’t exist. These white men should walk a week in my shoes. It looks like these leopards will never change their spots no matter how much distance Farage tries to put between himself and his colleagues with hasty resignations.

What’s most alarming about all of this is that many of the Brexit Party’s supporters don’t actually care; they’re not bothered about racism and prejudice, they’re in it for the ride, warts and all. They love the way Farage flicks the Vs at the Establishment and don’t care that he is part of this exclusive boys’ club to which they will never, ever be allowed entry.

Nor do they care that he consorts with bigots and climate deniers. And what’s even more alarming is that sections of Brexit Party support really know all this, think it’s rather distasteful, but have decided to put up with it just so they can see their dream of Brexit become reality.

Farage in the UK; Trump in the US. It’s two sides of the same debased coinage. Farage may not be as powerful but he is more plausible than the unpredictable narcissist in the White House. Ultimately he may prove even more dangerous. Without even getting close to holding any office of state, Farage can already claim to be the lead instigator of Britain’s rupture with Europe. Which begs the question, what would he be capable of, in office?

Scotland, in the name of all that is holy, is this the politics we want to be part of?