Farage to attend Trump inauguration
January 5, 2017
Nigel Farage, the man who led the British campaign for the country to leave the European Union, will attend the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on January 20 in Washington.
During a TV interview on Britain's Sky News, Farage was asked if he would be attending Trump's swearing-in ceremony.
Farage responded: "I certainly am. I can't wait."
"The governor of Mississippi has invited me and I'm there for a few days, and it's going to be a great, historic event," he continued. "In America they've had a political revolution and it's complete; the problem in Britain is our revolution is not complete because the same people are still in charge."
Remarkably, even though Britain has an ambassador to the United States - Sir Kim Darroch - Farage said he wants to be a bridge between the government of Prime Minister Theresa May and the future Trump administration.
Trump lauds Farage
Shortly after winning the election in November, Trump said Farage - the former leader of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) - should be Britain's ambassador to Washington, but the British government flatly dismissed that suggestion.
Farage spent decades campaigning for Britain to leave the European Union and helped to force then-Prime Minister David Cameron to call the referendum in June 2016, which resulted in the so-called "Brexit" vote to leave the EU.
But shortly after the referendum, when Farage was a leading contender to become prime minister (after Cameron resigned) he shocked everyone by announcing he was leaving politics, and resigned as UKIP leader in November.
He sees Trump as an anti-establishment ally, and visited the president-elect in the US shortly after the November election. Trump has yet to meet with Britain's prime minister.
Despite his open hostility towards the EU, Farage has been a member of the European Parliament since 1999. And starting next week he will also host a daily radio phone-in show in London.
He was invited by Mississippi governor Phil Bryant because Farage once campaigned for Trump in Mississippi.
bik/gb (Reuters, AP)