Nigel Farage needs a new role model, and quickly

Nigel Farage should now listen to his own assessment about Donald Trump from 10 years ago. As it became clear in 2016 that the New York businessman might become president, Farage told a private audience there were “real problems” with Trump. There was “a certain sense of anger about Trump”, Farage warned, “a sense he’s only got one gear”. And while he admired Trump on security matters, he said that “there’s much of the rest of his agenda I find pretty worrying”. Farage may regret he didn’t stick to that scepticism. Within five months the then Ukip leader was in America backing Trump at campaign events, and was the first British politician to visit him in New York after his first election triumph. The world has come to see them as great buddies, united in trying to make America – and Britain – Great Again. It must be the closest relationship a US president has ever had with a British opposition leader who hasn’t been PM. But now, as Trump is publicly humiliated and exposed as deeply unpopular among American voters – including tens of millions who once voted for him – Farage risks becoming deeply hated and distrusted by association. The Trump effect is another huge problem for Farage at a time when Reform has dropped from an average 31 per cent support a year ago to 22 per cent last month. Between April 2025 and July 2026 an astonishing 336 consecutive polls had Reform leading all other parties, but now the last 28 surveys have had Labour ahead, with Reform falling as low as 20 per cent in some polls. In America, Trump’s net approval rating is minus 36 per cent (66 per cent disapprove of him against 32 per cent who approve). But in Britain, he’s doing twice as badly, with a net approval rating of minus 75 per cent – that means only one in every eight British voters think Trump is doing well. This widespread loathing of Trump in the UK is bound to damage a party whose leader is so fawning and toadyish towards the US president. Nigel Farage claims to be a great believer in loyalty, but does he really want to remain shackled to the most unpopular US president there has ever been in Britain? Trump’s resounding defeat in the midterm elections largely flows from the cost-of-living crisis, much of which stems from the war on Iran which Trump launched without seeking approval from Congress, American voters or his Nato allies. In particular, Iran’s blocking of the Strait of Hormuz since the end of February means British voters, too, are suffering the inflationary effects on oil and other imports. British voters will blame Trump for their financial woes just as much as people in America do. But rising prices and the Iran war aren’t the only reasons Farage’s unflinching support for Trump will do him and his party long-term damage, and kibosh any chance of serving as ministers. Farage and his colleagues make no secret of their admiration for Trump and his Maga movement, with regular trips to America to observe how Maga operates. The British public notice the Trump influence. A prime example is the emphasis on huge campaign donations from billionaire donors. Indeed, Farage himself cited on GB News this week the $450 million that Republican candidates received from Elon Musk as a reason why the Republicans were likely to do better than most observers expected. Farage was badly wrong, of course and Musk’s money was wasted. Indeed, this week was a welcome reminder that you can’t always buy elections, and voters are sick of politicians who think you can. Farage and Reform ape Trump and Maga in other ways too. Where Trump seems to take Russia’s side in the Ukraine war – unbelievably, he blames the war on President Zelensky – Farage tried in the days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to explain Putin’s attack. “I understood why he was doing it,” he said in a video posted to YouTube, according to The Times, and pointed to “Russian-speaking communities who in many ways would rather be part of a greater Russia than part of somewhere else”. He has since clarified that Putin “has lost all rationality and poses a great danger to the world”. Yet after Putin seized Crimea in 2014, Farage said the EU had “blood on its hands”, and in 2024 he seemed to side with Putin in saying the West had provoked Russia’s invasion (though the Reform leader now says he backs Ukraine and Western support). And a year ago Nathan Gill – once the Reform leader in Wales – was jailed for more than 10 years for taking bribes to make pro-Russian statements in the European Parliament and in the media. And Gill was one of Farage’s most intimate allies in his years running Ukip and the Brexit Party. The stench of that will linger. Above all, both Trump and Farage have come to dominate their respective parties like no American or British party leaders before. Dissidents are purged ruthlessly, as seen in Trump’s blocking of critical candidates ahead of the midterms and Rupert Lowe’s unceremonious exit from Reform. At the next general election British voters face the possibility of a British version of Trump, or MBGA – Make Britain Great Again – which might subjugate not just our politics, but the civil service, our judicial system, and the media. Trump brilliantly demonstrates the perils of untrammelled power. If I were running one of our other political parties, I’d collect every joint picture of Farage and Trump, ready for every campaign leaflet, poster, and coffee mug. They’d include the pair grinning together in Trump Tower just after his first presidential victory in 2016. Then there’s Farage wearing one of the famous Trump red caps; and the two side-by-side in the Oval Office. In short, nobody comes nearer to being the British Trump than Nigel Farage: bombastic and funny; charismatic and driven; cavalier with rules, as in the long-rumbling row over declaring that £5m donation; accused by one of his own MPs of running a party which is “so f***ing chauvinistic” towards women; and obsessed with amassing money. Farage quickly needs to find a new role model.