Nigel Farage and UK populist right seek to use Trump win to build momentum
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Version 0 of 1. Reform UK leader to give speech in Wales while US election result was also celebrated by Tommy Robinson Nigel Farage will on Friday address his party’s first big rally since Donald Trump’s election win as Britain’s emboldened populist right seek to drive momentum and build on links with the US president-elect. In an offer that has been declined by Labour, the Reform UK leader has already suggested he could work “behind the scenes” to build ties with Trump’s administration on behalf of the UK government. Farage will make the speech in Newport in south Wales after attending a victory party in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, attended by Trump and other figures likely to be prominent in the incoming White House administration. Trump’s plans to radically slash the US public sector and appoint Elon Musk to “sack vast numbers of people” were a blueprint for what needed to happen in the UK, Farage has said. But while Reform is the closest British equivalent to the movement behind Trump, his win was also met with elation by the far right. A video message recorded by Tommy Robinson in anticipation of a Trump win, before his jailing last month on contempt of court charges, was posted on the activist’s X account, in which he said: “I’m in my prison cell doing cartwheels.” Close associates of Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, are using the social media platform to call on Trump to put pressure on Keir Starmer to release a man they described as a “political prisoner”. They also tagged X’s owner, Elon Musk, who permitted Robinson to return to the platform and has engaged with him on it. Links between Robinson and Trump backers were reflected in “live coverage” of the US election by Robinson’s Urban Scoop platform. It carried interviews with US rightwingers including the multimillionaire libertarian Patrick Byrne. The 2016 election denier has funded a pro-Trump campaign group, using it to steer six-figure cheques to far-right groups that push voting conspiracies in the US. Telegram channels and other social media from across the British far right – parties such as Britain First through to a plethora of violent street groups – also lit up in celebration in the hours after it emerged that Trump had won. However, Reform is potentially best placed to benefit from Trump. Sources in the party said they were hoping for another, modest, membership boost on the back of his victory. Reform is already seeking to mimic Trump’s success in pulling together a coalition of sorts encompassing “left behind” voters in former industrial heartlands, rural communities and even some black, Asian and minority ethnic voters, while also courting young men in particular. But there are also differences. While some in Reform would eagerly embrace the Trump campaign’s strategy of bypassing the “mainstream” media, senior voices in the party also recognise its value. Joe Mulhall, the director of research at the campaign group Hope Not Hate, said: “With Farage, there is already a sense that he will seek to exploit his relationship with Trump in terms of political heft and weight. “But another side is that Elon Musk could well end up in the White House. We’re talking there about someone who is already highly influential and who has been retweeting and messaging Tommy Robinson even in recent weeks.” Sign up to First Thing Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters after newsletter promotion The more tangible impact of the Trump win in the UK was with continuing attempts to “legitimise” far-right ideas in Britain, said Mulhall. “The far right, whether they’re on the streets or in politics, have to sell a utopian idea to people. But with Trump as president they are able to effectively point to an actually existing example of what they want to do,” he added. “It emboldens them in the sense that the message that they’re selling is something that can be presented as tangible, realistic and achievable. It can be presented as actually existing. But it also creates an epochal sense of change – the idea that they are winning the global battle of ideas.” Gawain Towler, until recently Reform’s head of communications, said Farage’s loyalty to Trump – even as others on the UK right had sought to distance themselves from him – would now pay off. “Trump is personal and personable and he does remember things. So that is now going to come into play,” he said. “More broadly, there are differences between the US and here, but one of the big similarities between the US election and what has continued to happen here is the way in which there is a sense that there is a contempt on the part of many in the media and the political elite for voters who would vote for someone like Trump.” Towler said Farage was in the US while Reform had clocked up what he claimed was his first political win since entering parliament, in the form of the UK government’s U-turn on a proposed ban on smoking and vaping in pub gardens. “It’s always about the economy and that’s why Trump wins, but the culture wars also matter and we’re very confident that opposition to net zero is really paying off for us.” |