Trump urges Farage to do a deal with Johnson
President attacks Corbyn and encourages Brexiteers to make general election pact
DONALD TRUMP has urged Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage to combine and become an “unstoppable force” to prevent Jeremy Corbyn taking Britain to “bad places”.
The US president said the Prime Minister and the Brexit Party leader would make a “terrific” team if they could agree a general election pact.
In an interview on Mr Farage’s radio show, Mr Trump said: “I wish you two guys could get together. I think it would be a great thing ... you would really have some numbers, because you did fantastically in the last election.”
He said Mr Corbyn would be “very bad” for Britain, prompting the Labour leader to accuse him of trying to “interfere” in the forthcoming election.
The US president said Mr Johnson was “absolutely the right guy for the times” and backed him to get Brexit done, but warned that his EU deal would have to be changed if he wanted to secure a free trade deal with America.
It came as Mr Johnson celebrated his first 100 days in power by promising he would take Britain out of the EU by the end of January at the “absolute latest”.
Mr Corbyn, meanwhile, kicked off his campaign by declaring class war on the rich as Labour said Britain should not have any billionaires.
Mr Farage’s LBC radio interview was timed to precede the Brexit Party’s election launch, at which Mr Farage will reveal how many candidates he will field, his strategy and whether he shall stand to be an MP.
Mr Trump’s comments follow speculation that the Brexit Party could stand down candidates in hundreds of seats and concentrate on a small number of potentially winnable constituencies in the hope that they would hold the balance of power in a hung parliament and could force Mr Johnson to change his Brexit deal.
In a wide-ranging conversation, the president also discussed the Royal family, the Duchess of Sussex’s spat with the media, the Harry Dunn case and British jihadists in US custody.
Mr Farage asked Mr Trump whether he thought Mr Johnson should drop his deal and go for a “clean break” Brexit.
Mr Trump refused to “tell Boris” what to do, but urged the two party leaders to form a pact.
He told Mr Farage: “He [Mr Johnson] respects you a lot, I can tell you that. I don’t know if you know that or not. I have enough to do over here without having to worry about the psychology of two brilliant people over there, frankly.”
Mr Farage again offered Mr Johnson an electoral pact, saying he would be “right behind him” if he switched to a no-deal Brexit.
The Prime Minister has repeatedly insisted there would be no deals with the Brexit Party.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump was less than complimentary about the Labour leader, saying: “Corbyn would be so bad for your country, he’d be so bad, he’d take you in such a bad way. He’d take you into such bad places. I’m sure he’s a lovely man but he’s of a different persuasion, to put it mildly. Perhaps the opposite. He’s at the opposite end.”
He dismissed Mr Corbyn’s claims that the NHS would be up for grabs for the US after Brexit, saying: “I don’t know where that came from. It’s so ridiculous. I think Corbyn put that out
there. It’s not for us to have anything to do with your healthcare system, we’re just talking about trade.”
Turning to the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal, Mr Trump said: “He’s in a difficult position – to be honest with you... this deal... under certain aspects of the deal... you can’t do it, you can’t do it, you can’t trade, I mean we can’t make a trade deal with the UK. Under certain ways we’re precluded. Which would be ridiculous frankly.”
No10 responded by saying Mr John- son’s deal would mean “the whole of the UK will leave the EU customs un- ion, which means we can strike our own free trade deals around the world”.
Mr Farage asked Mr Trump his opinion on the Duchess of Sussex’s reaction to criticism of her in the media, and said: “She’s taking it very personally, I guess you have to be a little bit different than that but she’s taken it very, very personally and I can understand it, but I don’t know her.”
The president said of British jihadists in US custody: “So, as usual, the United States gets stuck with it... you
guys, you don’t want ‘em back. Nobody wants ‘em, you know? Which isn’t fair.”
Mr Corbyn later wrote on Twitter: “Donald Trump is trying to interfere in Britain’s election to get his friend Boris Johnson elected.”
♦ Antoinette Sandbach, a former Conservative MP, announced last night that she has joined the Liberal Democrats.
Ms Sandbach was one of the 21 Tory rebels who had the party whip removed after rebelling against the Government to support a bill blocking a no-deal Brexit.
She said: “People have a very clear choice, the Conservative Party offers years of uncertainty whilst the Liberal Democrats will stop Brexit.”