Farage plays his Trump card but Johnson surely shouldn’t be tempted

Farage plays his Trump card but Johnson surely shouldn’t be tempted

Perhaps the most bizarre event so far in this election campaign was Nigel Farage talking to Donald Trump on his LBC radio programme yesterday.

Clearly Farage has been the big loser from the emergence of Johnson as the Conservative leader and Prime Minister and we have heard very little from the the Brexit party leader over the last month or so.

How was Farage going to get back into the game and start commanding media attention again? Well we have now seen how and the question is what does Johnson do do?

The problem is that in UK terms a link with Trump himself is an asset that is declining in value by the day as the moves to impeach him ratchet up.

What is the political benefit to Johnson in entering a dialogue particularly when there is the Farage link? The last thing the prime minister wants to do is to take action that puts the attention back on Farage who has been so damaging to Conservative Party interests in the past.

Also it is hard to see how Trump adds to Johnson’s political position at the moment. Of course if the UK does leave the EU at the end of of January then the government will need to talk to the US about a trade deal but being seen to use the Farage link would not be helpful.

No doubt Farage will use his relationship with Trump at today’s Brexit Party campaign launch.

As the Mirror front page this morning highlights a Johnson relationship with Trump could be a very big negative because it rightly or wrongly triggers the “US threat to the NHS” meme that has been used before and seems to get traction.

Mike Smithson


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