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Farage first UK politician to meet Trump since election | Farage first UK politician to meet Trump since election |
(35 minutes later) | |
Nigel Farage has become the first British politician to meet Donald Trump since he became US president-elect. | |
A UKIP spokesman said the interim party leader discussed "freedom and winning" with Mr Trump on a visit to Trump Tower in New York. | |
Mr Trump's spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway said the meeting had been "very productive". | |
Downing Street said Mr Farage had "no role" in the government's relationship with the incoming US administration. | |
Ms Conway said: "They enjoy each other's company and they had the opportunity to talk about freedom and winning and what all this means for the world." | |
A UKIP source said the meeting had "made the prime minister look very foolish". | |
Analysis | |
By Iain Watson, political correspondent | |
UKIP sources told me that Nigel Farage has made the prime minister look "very foolish". And on the surface it is embarrassing. | |
Theresa May will not be meeting the president-elect until next year - yet a UK opposition politician has already popped in for a chat. | |
But Downing Street say they are relaxed about it; that Mrs May has already spoken to Mr Trump by telephone and there will be no role - formal or otherwise - for Mr Farage as a "go-between" with the new US administration. | |
Yet there are political dangers for the prime minister. Mrs May certainly will not be welcoming this opportunity for UKIP to bask in the reflected glory of a Trump victory. | |
People were asking what was the point of the party after the Brexit referendum - so the prime minister really will not want them resurrected as the "British Trumps"- the voice of forgotten voters. | |
She will have to renew efforts to claim that mantle for herself. | |
Mr Farage earlier told US media that Mrs May's team had been "quite rude" about Mr Trump, "so there are some fences to be mended". | |
"Trump is an Anglophile, he understands and recognises what our two great nations have done together between us," he told Fox News. | |
"And, thank goodness, we are coming towards the end of an American president who loathed Britain. | "And, thank goodness, we are coming towards the end of an American president who loathed Britain. |
"One of the things we can do, we can have between us a sensible trade relationship, cut tariffs, we are massive investors in each other's countries. There's a bright future." | "One of the things we can do, we can have between us a sensible trade relationship, cut tariffs, we are massive investors in each other's countries. There's a bright future." |
When asked ahead of the meeting if Mr Trump had invited him, Mr Farage joked to reporters: "We're just tourists." | |
Mrs May plans to visit Mr Trump in the first three months of next year after his inauguration. | Mrs May plans to visit Mr Trump in the first three months of next year after his inauguration. |