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Given Nigel Farage’s high view of himself, it is no surprise that the MP and Trump-backer is positioning himself as an unofficial ambassador to the incoming US President.
Luckily for us, however, a senior member of the British Government has made it clear they are having none of it.
In today’s Telegraph, the leader of Reform UK called on Britain to “roll out the red carpet” to the Republican victor, offering to play a key role himself in “bridging the divide that exists between Starmer’s Government and Trump”.
Doing the media rounds today, however, the Cabinet Office Minister all but declined the populist politician’s offer.
“I think we’ll have our own relationships,” Pat McFadden told Times Radio.
And when asked about Farage on Good Morning Britain, he responded with a question many of us have been asking: “Hasn’t he got a job working for the people of Clacton that he was recently elected to a few months ago?”
The idea that the MP for Clacton prefers America to his own constituency has become a meme online.
“The MP for Mar a Lago out working hard for the people of Clacton,” tweeted one person in response to footage of Farage visiting Trump’s golfing resort.
We’ve been here before, of course.
During his last stint as President, Trump himself broke diplomatic protocol by suggesting that the then-UKIP leader would have made a ‘great’ UK ambassador to the US.
The Government at the time insisted that there was “no vacancy” – the response initially given to journalists was reportedly unprintable.
Fortunately, there is still ‘no vacancy’, with the Times reporting today that the Government has extended the contract of the current ambassador, Dame Karen Pierce in response to the election result.
Perhaps that’s good news for the people of Clacton too.
Because it’s not just his frequent trips abroad that have led people to wonder how on earth he could be ‘working hard’ for the people who elected him.
As one post with over 4,000 views online pointed out: “The good people of Clacton however are still waiting for their MP to set up a constituency office [and] to agree times and places for a surgery.”
Maybe try setting up a headquarters in Clacton first, Nige, before thinking about the Washington branch.
