PM Ukippered in race to see Trump
Nigel Farage could be first UK politician to meet new President ...as he’s in line for inauguration invitation
NIGEL FARAGE hopes to heap fresh embarrassment on Theresa May today – by becoming the first British politician to meet newly elected US President Donald Trump.
The Ukip leader is also expected to be invited to Mr Trump’s inauguration in Washington in the New Year.
Mr Farage spent yesterday at the President-Elect’s Trump Tower HQ in New York for talks with Mr Trump’s aides.
His meeting with the Trump team came after Downing Street reacted furiously to claims that Mr Farage will be their ‘go-between’ with the new President.
Mrs May, along with several senior Conservatives, has criticised Mr Trump in the past, saying he was ‘absolutely wrong’ to claim that parts of Britain were no-go areas to the police because of their predominantly Muslim population.
By contrast, Mr Farage campaigned for him, prompting Mr Trump to describe his election victory as ‘Brexit plus’.
Mr Farage told The Mail on Sunday: ‘This is more important than petty point-scoring. I am a patriot and will do anything I can to help Britain forge a successful relationship with Mr Trump.’
Downing Street was bruised when Mrs May was only the tenth world leader to speak to Mr Trump after his triumph.
Mrs May will tomorrow declare that Mr Trump’s victory shows that ‘change is in the air’ – and will pledge to respond to the electoral forces which swept him to power.
In her first detailed response to the Trump phenomenon, the Prime Minister will argue that much of his support came from the victims of globalisation – typically the working classes who have seen their jobs disappear.
During her speech at the Mansion House in London, she will argue that Government policy – such as her plan to bring back grammar schools and curb immigration – should be directed at helping those left behind by a ‘world transformed’.
Referring to ‘a new PresidentElect in the US who defied the polls and the pundits all the way up to election day itself’, the Prime Minister is expected to say: ‘Change is in the air. And when people demand change, it is the job of politicians to respond.’
While ‘liberalism and globalisation have harnessed unprecedented levels of wealth and opportunity’ and ‘lifted millions out of poverty around the world’, she will add: ‘There have been downsides to glo- balisation in recent years… in our zeal and enthusiasm to promote this agenda as the answer to all our ills, we have on occasion overlooked the impact on those closer to home who see these forces in a different light.’
She is expected to say: ‘These people – often those on modest to low incomes living in rich countries like our own – see their jobs being outsourced and wages undercut.
‘They see their communities changing around them and don’t remember giving their permission for that to be the case.
‘If we believe, as I do, that liberalism and globalisation continue to offer the best future for our world, we must deal with the downsides and show that we can make these twin forces work for everyone.’
Mrs May’s attempt to woo Mr Trump suffered a setback after he was branded a ‘donkey’ and ‘buffoon’ by senior Tory MP Sir Simon Burns. Former Minister Sir Simon, who backed Mrs May’s Conservative leadership campaign, said Mr Trump is ‘totally out of his depth and temperamentally unfit’ for the White House.
The contest between Hillary Clinton and Mr Trump was ‘a race between a thoroughbred and a donkey – and the donkey won.’
Writing in today’s Mail on Sunday, Sir Simon, a long-standing Democrat supporter who campaigned for Mrs Clinton, savaged Mr Trump’s ‘bull-in-a-china shop’ approach to foreign affairs.
He said: ‘The American people have chosen a buffoon as President. God help us all.’
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn echoed Mrs May’s words in a speech yesterday, describing Mr Trump’s election as a ‘global wake-up call’ after Mr Trump had targeted the concerns of people who feel left behind by globalisation and ‘angry at a political elite that doesn’t listen’.
Mr Trump’s success created alarm among Mrs May’s close advisers, some of whom had publicly disparaged the billionaire businessman during his incendiary campaign.
Only Boris Johnson emerged with credit, being the first overseas politician to take a call from the Vice-President-Elect, Mike Pence.
Mr Johnson will today snub an emergency EU foreign ministers’ meeting called to discuss the shock US election victory. A spokesman for the Foreign Secretary – who described European concern about the US election result as a ‘whinge-orama’ – said there was ‘no need for an additional meeting’. Meanwhile, during a third night of rioting in the US after Mr Trump’s victory, police fired tear gas and hurled flash grenades in response to protests in Portland, Oregon.
Hundreds of people marched through the city, disrupting traffic and spraying graffiti. Police also investigated reports of a shooting. And more than 1,000 protesters took to the streets in rallies across California on Friday.
SINCE certain events in 1776, we on this side of the Atlantic have tried (most of the time) to leave our American cousins to run their own affairs. But the United States has since grown so large and so powerful that the nature of the government in Washington DC has come to matter almost as much to us as it does to them.
In the past, we have looked on in amusement, amazement or admiration, sometimes mumbling some polite advice when the chance came.
But with the election of Donald Trump, many in Britain are distressed – and a little nervous – to see old friends in such a position.
All the old rules seem to have gone. We wince to hear how long it took Mr Trump to telephone our Premier, though the ‘special relationship’ really isn’t as strong as we like to think.
We even take seriously stories that the President-elect might meet Nigel Farage before he meets Theresa May, a goldplated snub if it happens. This is certainly not politics as usual.
But that – a clear breach with the usual – is what those who voted for Mr Trump said they hoped for. But did they really grasp just how different this new era would be?
Politics, here and there, has not always been full of saintly figures.
But has there ever been one in such a high position with such a dubious and tricky reputation?
The Mail on Sunday today explores Mr Trump’s business dealings and associates and finds much that is murky and distressing, as well as several broken promises.
It is, of course, possible that the mantle of power will change Donald Trump, that finding himself the inheritor of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, living where they lived, working where they worked, he will grow into a more reassuring figure.
But was this sort of person, this sort of businessman, this sort of citizen (who thinks it ‘smart’ to pay as little tax as possible) really what the voters of the world’s greatest democracy wanted when they demanded a more open, honest, responsive leader?