Nigel farage

Theresa May was tenth in line in the phone queue to speak to president-elect Donald Trump last week. Yet Nigel Farage managed an hour-long meeting with Trump over the weekend – and even found time to pose for pictures in Trump’s gold-plated elevator. Downing Street has so far said it doesn’t want Farage’s help to build bridges with the new US leader. But how sustainable is that approach? The Daily Telegraph says now is not the time to be fussy about the way in which Britain forges links with Trump. The paper says that the government is ‘right to consider making use of Nigel Farage’, who it points out will

With Theresa May still hanging on the telephone for Donald Trump, the Prime Minister may soon be turning to Nigel Farage for a helping hand. The interim Ukip leader has forged a friendly relationship with the new President — joining him on the campaign trail. Now Farage has given an interview in which he volunteeers to take on a diplomatic role — helping the UK build ties with the US. What’s more, Farage even says he will suggest to Trump that he should keep his hands off May — and can step in as the ‘responsible adult’ if it looks as though the President might get hands-on with the PM: ‘I

As a general rule, any day the government loses in court is a good day. So yesterday was an especially fine day. A delicious one, too, obviously, in as much as the fist-clenched, foot-stamping, whining of so many Brexiteers was so overblown and ludicrous it toppled into hilarity. People who shouted for months about the urgent need to restore parliamentary sovereignty now reacted in horror to the restoration of parliamentary sovereignty. ‘That’s not what we meant’, they spluttered. We meant governmental supremacy only when it suits us. Well, tough. A certain amount of squealing was only to be expected since, if Nigel Farage has taught us anything, it is that the Brexit-minded

This year’s Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year awards, sponsored by Benenden, saw Theresa May reunited with her former Cabinet colleague George Osborne — and Boris Johnson declare that Brexit will be a Titanic success. Here are a selection of photos from the event, courtesy of Alan Davidson: The Prime Minister George Osborne and Boris Johnson Arron Banks and Isabel Oakeshott Sir Craig Oliver Jacob Rees Mogg Emily Sheffield Theresa May and Andrew Neil Fiona Hill Nick Timothy Penny Mourdaunt Nigel Farage Boris Johnson Kwasi Kwarteng Andrew Neil and Danielle Wall Jess Phillips and Jacob Rees Mogg Friends reunited Nigel Farage with his prize Trevor Kavanagh Andrew Neil Chris Bryant Leah

Steven Woolfe has said Ukip is in a ‘death spiral’ and on the basis of the latest candidate to join the party’s leadership contest, it seems like he might be right. John Rees-Evans announced this morning that he was throwing his hat in the ring to replace Nigel Farage at the top of the party. Rees-Evans is a relative outsider in the race and few know quite what he stands for. But what is known about the Ukip leadership candidate is that he once accused a ‘gay donkey’ of trying to ‘rape’ his horse. And during his leadership pitch on the Daily Politics, he was keen to try and move on from what

Since Nigel Farage’s latest resignation as Ukip leader, it has become clear that he is the only person who can hold the party together. Without him, Ukip has become a seemingly endless brawl between various hostile factions. Still, this leaderless mess has more supporters than the Liberal Democrats. That’s because Ukip, for all its flaws, has given a voice to those ignored in an overly centrist political debate — first Eurosceptic Tories, then working-class Labour voters. With decent leadership, Ukip could still do to the Labour party in the north of England what the SNP has done to it in Scotland. Steven Woolfe might have been able to supply that

Labour’s current turmoil gifts Ukip an open goal. Or at least it should do. But instead of taking the opportunity to snatch disaffected Labour voters away, the party seems at pains to trip itself up. Steven Woolfe ended up in hospital after an ‘altercation’ with a fellow Ukip MEP, while Diane James stepped down as leader after just 18 days. Two weeks on, Nigel Farage is back in the helm and it looks to be business as usual for Ukip. Yet while Farage offers stability and familiarity, his presence suggests Ukip is simply offering more of the same – and doing little to try and broaden its appeal. The prospect

It’s day three of Ukip’s latest leadership contest and the party has found itself splashed across the front pages of today’s papers for all the wrong reasons. Following the bust-up in the European Parliament which left Steven Woolfe in hospital, Nigel Farage has promised to launch a Ukip investigation into what happened. That hasn’t stopped the debacle from playing out on the airwaves. Mike Hookem, the MEP who was alleged to have hit Woolfe, denied doing so in an interview with the BBC. He said that he had acted in self-defence and did his best to downplay the row, joshing that it was just ‘handbags at dawn’: ‘There was a tussle between an elderly

The latest Ukip leadership contest to succeed Diane James has descended into chaos after Steven Woolfe was rushed to hospital. The Ukip MEP — and leadership hopeful — is reported to have regained consciousness after an incident in European Parliament this morning. In a statement at lunchtime, the party claimed Woolfe had been ‘taken suddenly ill in the European parliament building in Strasbourg this morning’. But was this an entirely honest version of events? Details have since emerged that suggest Woolfe was actually taken to hospital after he was punched by a party colleague — alleged to be the party’s defence spokesman Mike Hookem — at a Ukip meeting. The Telegraph reports that following the blow to

Diane James is standing down as Ukip leader after only 18 days in the job, blaming ‘personal and professional reasons’ and a lack of ‘sufficient authority’ within the party for her decision to quit. James said she didn’t have the backing she needed among fellow Ukip MEPs and party officers, but insisted she would still ‘concentrate fully’ on her role within the European Parliament. In a statement released last night, she said: ‘Having won the enthusiastic support of party members, I was nominated by them as the new leader at the Ukip conference. Since that time, I have been in discussion with party officers about the role. It has become clear that I do

Nigel Farage has just delivered his speech at Ukip conference, in which he declared that he had put ‘absolutely all of me’ into Britain leaving the EU. ‘I literally couldn’t have worked any harder, or couldn’t have been more determined – it’s been my life’s work to get to this point. I want my country back, but now folks I want my life back,’ he said. He went onto claim that Ukip had ‘changed the course of British history’ and suggested that the party had ‘brought down a prime minister’ and had ‘got rid of a chancellor’. On Theresa May’s premiership, he suggested there was a ‘great political battle ahead’, before raising concerns that she

Ukip’s autumn conference kicks off tomorrow in Bournemouth. With the new leader set to be announced, there had been hopes the two-day event would mark the beginning of a new exciting post-Brexit era for the party. Instead, the party faces questions over whether there should be a second chapter at all. Steve Stanbury, Ukip’s former director, has appeared on the Daily Politics today to announce that he has defected to the Tories. In the interview with Jo Coburn, Stanbury said he believed the party’s best days were behind it now it has achieved the ‘principle objective’ of securing — and winning — an EU referendum. He says he hopes his Ukip colleagues will follow suit and ‘come

Last week Donald Trump managed to leave hacks and commentariats confused when he took to Twitter to declare that he would soon be referred to as ‘MR BREXIT!’. While many interpreted this to mean that he would win an election against the odds — just as the Leave vote did in the referendum — Mr S was curious to learn that Trump is set to share a platform with the UK’s very own Mr Brexit. Nigel Farage has told Sky News that he will be appear on stage with Donald Trump in Mississippi tonight to discuss ‘The Brexit Story’. Given that Trump has regulary praised Britain’s decision to leave the EU, no doubt Farage

Most people would say UKIP lends itself to comedy better than Denis Healey’s eyebrows lent themselves to tweezers – but not the people of Walton-on-the-Naze, as they live in the party’s only constituency. I’m a stand-up comic, and I was booked to play the town’s first comedy night this month. I don’t know if the lovely promoter realised I was Asian when he booked me; for my part, I didn’t realise Douglas Carswell was Walton’s MP, and only discovered while Googling the town on the way to the gig, when it was too late to turn back. When I arrived in Walton-on-the-Naze’s large ballroom with its cornicing and chandeliers (‘It