Nigel farage

Today Paul Nuttall has been appointed Ukip leader, winning over 62 pc of the vote. His election marks a new chapter for the party, after months of in-fighting and confusion since the Brexit vote. A popular figure in the party, many had hoped he would run in the first leadership election, that Diane James went on to win — before quitting after just 18 days. Better late than never, Nuttall now has a good chance of uniting the party behind him. In his acceptance speech, Nuttall wasted no time in setting out his vision for Ukip post-Brexit. He said he hoped ‘to replace the Labour party and make Ukip the patriotic

It’s not been a great week for Sir Kim Darroch. On Monday, he suffered the embarrassment of having the president-elect call for Nigel Farage to take his job. Now the interim Ukip leader has stuck the knife in further, giving an interview to Sam Delaney on Russia Today — natch — about the current UK ambassador to the US. Asked about his apparent job rival, Farage said he was unimpressed with Darroch when the pair previously met: ‘He once came to my office in Brussels and it was one of the most unpleasant conversations I’ve ever had.’ He also criticises Sir Kim’s pro-EU credentials for dealing with the Trump administration: ‘He

It is not self-evidently ridiculous that Nigel Farage should be the next British ambassador to the United States. The wishes of the president-elect should not automatically be discounted. John F. Kennedy’s wish that his friend David Ormsby-Gore (Lord Harlech) should be ambassador was granted. It is also not true that the post must be filled by a professional, or that the Prime Minister should not appoint a political rival to the post. Churchill gave the job to his main rival, Lord Halifax, from 1940. Certainly Mr Farage is not the conventional idea of a diplomat, but then Mr Trump is not the conventional idea of a president. Although its own

Here we go again. First Steven Woolfe quit Ukip following a row with his MEP colleagues and now it is the turn of Diane James, the former party leader. James has released a statement announcing that she will sit in the European Parliament as an independent — adding by way of explanation that her relationship with the party has become ‘increasingly difficult’. In reply, Nigel Farage has accused her of ‘irrational selfishness’. Of course, none of this is hugely surprising. James lasted in the role of leader for just 18 days — claiming at the time that despite her election she had no support among the party’s executive. What’s more, Steerpike understands

At first it looked like Jeremy Corbyn was going to go on the rights of Chagos Islanders at PMQs, but then he shifted tack to Brexit. Corbyn’s questions were quite tightly honed — using Boris Johnson’s comments in a Czech newspaper interview about Britain probably leaving the customs union to needle May. But Corbyn’s own failings give May a way out each time, she just attacks him for not being up to the job. At the end of their exchanges today, you were left with the sense that a better opposition leader could have caused May real problems today, but Corbyn simply isn’t up to it. May received a rare

Theresa May used her first big speech on foreign policy last night to spell out the need for globalisation to change. She adopted a softer approach than she did in her conference speech, when she went on the warpath against the liberal elite, says James Forsyth. Yet she remained clear: this year’s political upheaval shows something needs to give. It’s hard to fault that thinking, but while many would agree with the Prime Minister, does May have the answers for what this change should look like? No, says the Guardian, which slates Theresa May for having no answers to the key questions left following Donald Trump’s election victory. The paper says the Prime Minister

Nigel Farage is once again a thorn in the Prime Minister’s side. After Downing Street dismissed the interim Ukip leader’s offer to help May forge a relationship with Donald Trump, they were left red-faced over the weekend when Farage became the first British politician to meet the president-elect since his victory. Now the Prime Minister is under pressure to rethink her approach to both Farage and Trump. Yet rather than perform a u-turn, she has issued a fresh rejection of Farage’s offer of help. At today’s lobby briefing, when asked whether May would now consider accepting Farage’s help, the Prime Minister’s spokesman said Trump had told May he looked forward to enjoying the same close relationship that Ronald Reagan and

With Theresa May still hanging on the telephone for Donald Trump, the Prime Minister may soon be turning to Nigel Farage for a helping hand. The interim Ukip leader has forged a friendly relationship with the new President — joining him on the campaign trail. Now Farage has given an interview in which he volunteeers to take on a diplomatic role — helping the UK build ties with the US. What’s more, Farage even says he will suggest to Trump that he should keep his hands off May — and can step in as the ‘responsible adult’ if it looks as though the President might get hands-on with the PM: ‘I

As a general rule, any day the government loses in court is a good day. So yesterday was an especially fine day. A delicious one, too, obviously, in as much as the fist-clenched, foot-stamping, whining of so many Brexiteers was so overblown and ludicrous it toppled into hilarity. People who shouted for months about the urgent need to restore parliamentary sovereignty now reacted in horror to the restoration of parliamentary sovereignty. ‘That’s not what we meant’, they spluttered. We meant governmental supremacy only when it suits us. Well, tough. A certain amount of squealing was only to be expected since, if Nigel Farage has taught us anything, it is that the Brexit-minded