Will Nigel Farage be the next UK ambassador to the US?

It seems that every time that Nigel Farage is debased, insulted or ignored by the British establishment, Donald Trump stands up for his new mate.

Suggestions that Farage may seek to stand in an election for a seat in the House of Commons have been mocked by the mainstream media and political establishment. This has had the effect of sweeping under the rug, very serious criminal charges of election fraud leveled at the Conservative Party. Such fraud may have well cost Farage a victory in his previous election attempt.

Other rumours of Farage being given a Peerage so that he can enter Parliament as a life-member of the House of Lords have been met with equal disdain.

Donald Trump’s apparent personal commitment to use Farage as his “ideas man” on all issues relating to bilateral US-UK relations, has prompted many in the UK to try and dissuade Trump from his personal and now professional relationship with Farage. Some say that a proposed meeting between Donald Trump and Queen Elizabeth II is a calculated ploy to drive him away from the famed Brexiteer.

None of this seems to be having any effect on the independent minded Trump. This morning, The Donald tweeted the following:

Many people would like to see @Nigel_Farage represent Great Britain as their Ambassador to the United States. He would do a great job!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016

Indeed many PEOPLE would like to see Nigel Farage in just such a position.

The problem is that many robotic, lifeless individuals in the British establishment do not. Britain has always been a geographical island, but it seems that now more than ever, the British political and media establishment are going out of their way to make Britain an island of ideas, totally isolated from the new ideas taking the world by storm from Washington to Manilla, Paris to Rome, Chișinău to Amsterdam.

But no man is an island and nor are the British people, many of whom think that Farage ought to be due more respect by the elite. After all, he was on the winning side of the Brexit debate and had been fighting that long battle most of his adult life. He is owed respect if nothing more, even by those who disagree with him.

He has earned more than that from Donald Trump. From Trump, Farage has earned professional trust, personal affection and in terms of international diplomacy, the mother of all endorsements. We’ve actually got to a point, where in insulting and ignoring Nigel Farage, the British elite are actually insulting and ignoring the future President of the United States.

British Prime Ministers have often had varying relations with US presidents. Churchill, who was close to Roosevelt, Kennedy and Macmillan, enjoyed a deeply warm relationship, Reagan and Thatcher looked like an old couple at times. By contrast Harold Wilson and Lyndon Johnson had a tense relationship, things between Ted Heath and Richard Nixon were cold and Gordon Brown seemed never to get on with Barack Obama, despite having similar policy outlooks in many areas.

David Cameron, thinking that Trump would never win, took time out of the Brexit campaign to insult Trump. No prizes for guessing who is laughing now. Whilst Trump and Theresa May apparently had a productive phone call, the two are such different people that it’s difficult to imagine them getting on at a level rising above the bureaucratic, lest technocratic.

By contrast, Farage and Trump have had similar political Cinderella stories. They started as total outsiders and won the hearts and minds of a similar demographic; a combination of conservatives fed up with the neo-liberal and neo-con trajectories of their traditional parties as well as working class voters disaffected with the left’s equally enthusiastic embrace of neo-liberalism and post-cultural attitudes.

They also have both attracted those who have been so disgusted by professional careering politicians and the newspeak of the mainstream media that they have, often for the first time in their lives, gone out to vote. They voted for Brexit and for Trump and have done so enthusiastically and in a spirit of optimism.

One would have thought that post-Brexit, the establishment would clean their blooded noses and pay a bit more attention to the man whom Donald Trump has called “Mr. Brexit”. But instead, the dark sarcasm and condescension continues. When will they ever learn?

It is looking increasingly likely that Donald Trump may well appoint Farage to some position within the White House. I would love to be a fly on the wall in the EU Parliament and in Whitehall when and if such an announcement is made. Needless to say, the faces would be long and miserable, as they should be. They are on the losing side of history and still cannot fully come to terms with that fact.