Coming soon, maybe, to a theatre near you is the blockbuster for which we’ve slavered these recent months like panting bloodhounds on the scent of a wounded fox.

I say “soon”, though it won’t be that soon. And that “maybe” is a delicate euphemism for “probably not”. Still, in tribute to the miraculous flavour of the year just passed, we won’t lightly dismiss the apparently impossible. So prepare for the motion picture to which I take the liberty of according the drab working title: Nigel Farage – The Movie.

At this embryonic stage of what tends in Hollywood to be an elephantine gestation period, the details are patchy. What we know is that Arron Banks – the insurance salesman, Ukip bankroller, and tigerish warrior against Europe – claims Warner Bros is very interested in optioning a book he wrote.

Hand on heart, I haven’t read The Bad Boys of Brexit: Tales of Mischief, Mayhem & Guerrilla Warfare in the EU Referendum Campaign. The reviews suggest it is a (what else?) “rollicking” and “irreverent” account of how he and his compadres in the provisional anti-Brussels wing of the Keystone Kops haphazardly steered Britain towards the momentous decision of 23 June 2016. “Lurching from comedy to crisis (often several times a day),” the publisher’s blurb encapsulates, “he found himself in the glare of the media spotlight, fending off daily bollockings from Nigel Farage and po-faced MPs.” Oh my aching sides.

Nigel Farage's most controversial moments Show all 12 1 /12 Nigel Farage's most controversial moments Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he unveiled that 'breaking point' poster during the referendum Mr Farage was accused of deploying “Nazi-style propaganda” when he unveiled a poster showing Syrian refugees travelling to Europe under the next “Breaking point”. Users on social media were quick to compare the advert to a Nazi propaganda film with similar visuals and featuring Jewish refugees. The poster was particularly controversial because it was unveiled the morning of the killing of Labour MP Jo Cox Rex Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said he’d be concerned if his neighbours were Romanian In May 2014 Mr Farage was accused of a “racial slur” against Romanians after he suggested he would be concerned living next to a house of them. “I was asked if a group of Romanian men moved in next to you, would you be concerned? And if you lived in London, I think you would be,” he told LBC radio during an interview. Asked whether he would also object to living next to German children, he said: “You know the difference” Bongarts/Getty Images Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said the EU campaign was won 'without a bullet being fired' Nigel Farage has said the next Prime Minister has to be a Leave supporter AFP/Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he resigned as Ukip leader and came back days later After failing to win the seat of South Thanet at the general election, Nigel Farage stepped down as Ukip leader – as he had promised to do during the campaign. Days later on 11 May he “un-resigned” and said he would stay after being convinced by supporters within the party. We’ll see how long his resignation lasts this time AP/Matt Dunham Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he blamed immigrants for making him late Mr Farage turned up late to a £25-a-head ‘meet the leader’ style event in Port Talbot, Wales in December 2014. Asked why he was late, he blamed immigrants. “It took me six hours and 15 minutes to get here - it should have taken three-and-a-half to four,” he said. “That has nothing to do with professionalism, what it does have to do with is a country in which the population is going through the roof chiefly because of open-door immigration and the fact that the M4 is not as navigable as it used to be” Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he wanted to ban immigrants with HIV from Britain Mr Farage has used his platform as Ukip leader call for people with HIV to be banned from coming to Britain. Asked in an interview with Newsweek Europe in October 2014 who he thought should be allowed to come to the UK, he said: “People who do not have HIV, to be frank. That’s a good start. And people with a skill.” He also repeated similar comments in the 2015 general election leadership debates Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he defended the use of a racial slur against Chinese people Defending one of Ukip’s candidates, who used the word “ch**ky” to describe a Chinese person, Mr Farage said: “If you and your mates were going out for a Chinese, what do you say you're going for?" When he was told by the presented that he “honestly would not” use the slur, Mr Farage replied: “A lot would” Lintao Zhang/Getty Images Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said parts of Britain were ‘like a foreign land’ The Ukip leader used his 2014 conference speech to declare parts of Britain as being “like a foreign land”. He told his audience in Torquay that parts of the country were “unrecognisable” because of the number of foreigners there. Mr Farage has also previously said he felt uncomfortable when people spoke other language on a train Screengrab Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said the British army should be deployed to France At the height of trouble at Britain’s Calais border Mr Farage proposed a novel solution. The Ukip leader called for the British army to be sent to France to put down a migrant rebellion. “In all civil emergencies like this we have an army, we have a bit of a Territorial Army as well and we have a very, very overburdened police force and border agency,” he said. “If in a crisis to make sure we’ve actually got the manpower to check lorries coming in, to stop people illegally coming to Britain, if in those circumstances we can use the army or other forces then why not” AFP/Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said breastfeeding women should ‘sit in the corner’ Mr Farage sparked protests from mothers after he told women to “sit on the corner” if they wanted to breastfeed their children. “I think that given that some people feel very embarrassed by it, it isn’t too difficult to breastfeed a baby in a way that's not openly ostentatious,” Mr Farage said. He added: "Or perhaps sit in the corner, or whatever it might be” AFP/Getty Images Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said the gender pay gap exists because women are ‘worth less’ At a Q&A on the European Union in January 2014 Mr Farage said there was no discrimination against women causing the gender pay gap. Instead, he said, women were paid less because they were simply “worth far less” than many of their male counterparts. “A woman who has a client base, has a child and takes two or three years off - she is worth far less to her employer when she comes back than when she went away because that client base won't be stuck as rigidly to her portfolio,” he said Getty Nigel Farage's most controversial moments When he said he actually couldn’t guarantee £350m to the NHS after Brexit During the EU referendum campaign the Leave side pledged to spend £350 million a week on the National Health Service – claiming that this is what the UK sends to Brussels. Nigel Farage didn’t speak out against this figure and also pledged to spend EU cash on the health service and other public services himself. Then the day of the election result he suddenly changed his tone, saying he couldn’t guarantee the cash for the NHS and that to pledge to do so was “a mistake” Getty

But before we go on, a point that’s far obvious to evade even the studio execs at Warners. This story isn’t about Arron Banks. Banks is not an above-the-titles part. With the look of a cocky GBH defendant in an episode of Judge John Deed, he isn’t a movie character at all (though, being charitable, he might have enough about him for an exquisitely droll cameo from the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman, or the later Bernard Bresslaw.)

There can only be one star of this movie, and that’s the adorably toadish heartthrob whose efforts to restore our ancient liberties took him on an amazing journey from the back streets of Thanet to the up escalator at Trump Tower.

Who to cast as Nigel Farage depends on what kind of movie this is. A Banks spokesman hints at a comic caper, in keeping with the slapstick style of the book (ball-gowned Ukip doyennes falling into swimming pools; that kind of hilarity). In which case, Lee Evans, a gifted physical comic with a Hollywood track record, would be the first pick.

But that doesn’t feel right. The only point to making any madcap British comedy is to enable people to invest £100,000, and then claim £125m in tax relief after it takes £24.50 nationally on its opening weekend. If Warner Brothers is serious about this project, and wishes to make a profit, it will go for something more substantial than Carry On Sticking It Up Them Filthy Foreign Scum.

It could opt for a classy crime caper influenced by the Ocean’s franchise – Farage stole a country from under our noses, much as Danny Ocean and the gang stole tens of millions from under snouts of Vegas casino owners – with George Clooney cast to type in the title role.

Nigel Farage seen at Trump Tower again

But that’s wrong too. In a British context, the only reliable route to Oscar and box office glory is via a biopic about a contemporary or recent historical character. Colin Firth in The King’s Speech, Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, Helen Mirren in The Queen, Eddie Redmayne in The Theory of Everything … Why the hell shouldn’t Farage take his Oscar-generating place alongside George VI, Margaret Thatcher, Elizabeth II and Stephen Hawking?

He’s up there with any of them in terms of historic significance. You could argue that he has changed this country more than Thatch. You could certainly argue (as I and others have) that we’d have avoided the horror of Brexit had we stopped sneering at the farcicality and taken him seriously a decade ago.

With this film, the almost limitless possibilities for comic relief include Alec Baldwin reprising his Saturday Night Live turn as Trump. But the astounding tale of Farage, the Dickensian urchin who escaped the privations of a leading public school and commodity broking to lead his equally deprived compatriots out of the EU wilderness, and his melodramatic life (testicular cancer, that plane crash, the Latvian barmaid) demands more gravitas than Banks appreciates.

As casting director, I pick Kevin Spacey for the lead. Spacey has more than the essential Faragean lizardiness; he has the killer-behind-a-genial-facade actorly presence. As Frank Underwood in House of Cards, he has form playing a seeming political irrelevance who grabbed the prize.

Whether Warners would hire Robin Wright to reprise her glacial Lady MacBeth bit as Clare Underwood, by playing Farage’s missus, I leave to them. In real life, Frau Farage follows Mrs Arthur Daley (“‘Er Indoors”) and Niles Crane’s Maris as a broodingly unseen spouse. But the timeless beauty of the movies, even biopics, is that real life can be manipulated and recreated at will. Everyone knows that.