Brexit leader Nigel Farage weighs up his options for next steps, suggesting a future left-wing British government could defuse tension with a Trump White House by making him the go-between.
While the apparent impending collapse of the UK’s governing Conservative Party had led to mounting speculation over what role Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party — now known as the Reform Party, for obscure reasons — would play in that collapse, and in picking up the pieces afterwards. While Farage himself is typically cryptic over such questions, insisting he continues to weigh up options, one way in which he says he would be happy to serve is as British Ambassador to the United States.
That would be more unusual for the UK than say, the U.S. sending a politician abroad to represent its interests as British emissaries do tend to be career diplomats. And Farage has made a pitch for the position before, during the last Trump Presidency, when a conflicted Conservative Party leadership dedicated itself to delivering a Brexit it never wanted but then sabotaging it afterwards by passing up every post-Brexit opportunity going afterwards.
A trade deal with Trump’s America was there for the taking, for instance, but it was approached with an extreme lack of care and urgency and little was done before the bullishly anti-Anglo President Biden was sworn in.
But a new Trump Presidency is feasible in 2025, and the London-Washington relationship could be even worse with a UK left-wing government which polls claim is likely later this year. But Farage has a solution. He told The Times: “Starmer has a problem. His government will be filled with people like [the current shadow foreign secretary, David] Lammy, who’ve been so negative towards Trump. They may need a friend there. But we’ll see.”
Unlike a putative return to front-line politics in the UK, about which Farage is cagey, going to Washington D.C. and working with his friend President Trump sees no reservation. He said: “Is it a job I would do? Yes, of course I would. Yeah. Very, very important job.”
In 2016, then President-elect Trump made perfectly clear he’d be delighted to have Farage as the envoy, messaging London ignored. He said then: “Many people would like to see [Farage] represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!”.
