This article first appeared in The New European.

By KEVIN O’SULLIVAN

To the growing ranks of alleged muddled thinkers add the famous name of Jamie Oliver, the superstar chef whose vast business empire appears to be going slightly off the boil.

Not so long ago the self-styled loveable cheeky chappie gave a powerful boost to Farage’s Europhobic army when he announced in culinary terms that he loved the way UKIP was “stirring it up.”

“They have got my interest,” he added. “And I will listen to them.” Not quite an unbridled celebrity endorsement but a rare pat on the back for Nigel from a popular TV personality. Do not underestimate its value in the run up to the referendum.

Fast forward to last week and what’s this? It’s Mr Oliver closing six of his Jamie’s Italian restaurants with his chief executive blaming “the pressures and unknowns” of our brave new post-Brexit world. No word on what Jamie thinks about UKIP now. I’m guessing they’ve got his interest again, but not in a good way.

Our thoughts are with the 120 staff facing redundancy. And with the poor people of Aberdeen, Exeter, Cheltenham, Richmond, Tunbridge Wells and Ludgate Hill who will soon be deprived of menus that have been described as “breathtakingly banal”. Although many undoubtedly enjoy the simple fare, spontaneous protests by lovers of authentic Italian dining have been conspicuous by their absence.

Meanwhile, as the world’s richest cook, Jamie’s personal fortune is estimated at £240million. He lives in £10million mansion in London’s exclusive Hampstead with his wife Jules and their four children. His global corporation has nearly 3,000 employees. His food range and kitchen utensils are ubiquitous. And he’s the UK’s second biggest selling author after JK Rowling. Not bad for a guy who never read a book until he was 38.

So don’t panic, despite the setback, brand Oliver is doing just fine. There will still be 36 Jamie’s Italians dotted around Britain and a further 36 abroad. Not to mention our hero’s other eateries Union Jacks (serving “British grub”), Barbecoa (steaks) and Fifteen (baked beans on toast for seven quid). None of which so far seem to have suffered the notorious curse of Brexit.

In fairness, Fifteen’s obscenely priced beans were offered to appalled gourmets after Heinz paid the boss £15,000 to “do something cool” with their most mundane tinned product. And so it was that - with the dazzling addition of cherry tomatoes, red chillies and parmesan - Baked Bean Bruschetta became a signature dish. Wow.

Amid a storm of fully-deserved negative publicity, a contrite Jamie conceded: “Baked beans have got absolutely no place in any restaurant with integrity.” Quite. What next? Spaghetti Hoops Thermidor?

His carefully honed image as a salt-of-the-earth Essex boy lacks consistency. One minute he’s all “pukka” and “lovely jubbly”, a likeable Jack-the-lad knocking up unpretentious dishes on the telly. The next he’s launching his high-end Recipease chain - a pretentious cross between a cookery school, shop and cafe that charged £27.50 for olive oil and a mere £140 for lessons on how to make Beef Wellington.

After less than impressive financial performances forced the Clapham Junction and Brighton branches to shut, the Notting Hill flagship ceased trading just over a year ago. Jamie once confessed: “I’ve wasted and f***ed up about 40 per cent of my ventures.”

Of course, St Jamie’s insatiable desire to criticise our diets knows no bounds. Oh how he hated Turkey Twizzlers, oh how we didn’t care. Naturally, he’s a keen proponent of the horrendously illiberal sugar tax that will make life so much harder for all those citizens who aren’t multi-millionaires.

After a group of mothers were photographed passing deep fried takeaways to their kids through the playground railings, an outraged Mr O raced to Rotherham to point out the error of their ways… in a lucrative Channel 4 series grandiosely called Jamie’s Ministry Of Food. He tends to do rather well out of his culinary evangelism.

Reserving the right to feed their families without holier-than-thou orders from above, the Yorkshire town’s angry residents objected to being depicted as “dumbos and numpties” and told the visiting celeb where to get off.

Not surprisingly, the production’s mission to teach the proud locals basic cookery was dismissed as patronising. “How much money did Mockney-boy get paid for this latest self-serving drivel?” wrote one disgruntled viewer on a foodie website. “What a phoney!”

And when Jamie went to Rotherham United’s football ground to lecture the fans about the need for men to help out in the kitchen his PC pleas were drowned out by a cacophony of boos and chants of “You fat bastard.”

Unbowed, intrepid Jamie took his money-spinning crusade to California. In the stupefying programme Jamie’s American Food Revolution, US dinner ladies contemptuously rejected his lofty advice on nutritional meals and he was promptly banned from Los Angeles schools.

Bursting into tears (really), he sobbed: “This is not TV. This is the real thing.” So why bring a camera crew?

In the land of the free they don’t take kindly to interfering foreigners. As LA DJ Rod Wills told him: “Who made you king? I don’t think you should come here and tell us what to do.” Jamie looked confused. Telling people what to do is what he does. His food revolution a non-starter, the giant US network ABC cancelled the show half way through the second series.

In his old age – he’s 41 – Jamie is getting a little less preachy. About time! Perhaps the penny has finally dropped that grown-ups feel perfectly able to make their own gastronomic decisions without being hectored by a TV cook. If we want to eat unhealthily that’s our affair.

For a dyslexic struggler who left school at 16 with two GCSEs, the man with a pan has come a remarkably long way. A journey to the top that started after he was spotted as a cocky apprentice at London’s posh River Café and recruited to be the star of The Naked Chef.

Since then naked ambition has propelled him to extraordinary success. And on he goes. But, as he has discovered to his cost, he might just have been wrong about UKIP. Even the great Jamie Oliver, MBE buckles under the terrifying power of Brexit.