Last Updated on May 2, 2021
Nigel Farage, a former member of the European Parliament and the man who championed Brexit for a quarter century before successfully championing the breakup, reveals that he recently met with President Donald Trump in Florida and sees cause for optimism in the political climate of the United States.
Writing in the Express, Farage says he believes that President Trump will run for President again in 2024, and will win the election, buoyed by a groundswell of populist support. “My first stop was to see an old friend. President Trump looked fit and well at his Mar-a-Lago base and is very seriously considering another run next time around,” writes Farage. “Nobody can inspire conservatives in the US like he can and the Democratic Party should think carefully about underestimating him. One thing is for sure in American politics; Trump is not going away.”
Though Farage says “Republican activists and politicians alike are still downbeat and dispirited” after the questionable 2020 election, and “Allegations of electoral fraud still loom large and there is not a great deal of enthusiasm in the air,” he compared the current political landscape to that of the United Kingdom in 2016.
After British voters took to the poll on June 23, 2016 in a referendum that decisively ordered the United Kingdom to separate from the European Union, politicians slow walked the process for years. “As we now know, the establishment spent years trying to overturn the democratic will of the British people,” Farage writes. “However, after launching the Brexit Party in 2019 and winning the European elections with just six weeks of campaigning, we showed that the grassroots can fight back to victory.”
“For a while it looked as though Brexit might not happen but we seized it back and got it over the line,” Farage adds. “That is my message to Republicans on this trip. However bad Biden and the Democrats are, in some ways, their opportunity is now.” Farage notes that the Brexit victory in mid 2016 invigorated populists in the United States, and gave them confidence in President Trump’s electoral chances.
Farage recommends the same style of grassroots activism that he engaged in for 25 years with the aim of separating the United Kingdom from the European Union. He says that simple door knocking and communicating with voters “can increase the vote share of a candidate by more than 20 percent.”
“The American conservative movement can take back their country as we did by offering people a hopeful image of the future. In politics, it is not just elections we must win, but hearts and minds.”