“Boris is trying to seek relevancy, and Trump’s the most relevant person right now,” they said bluntly.
“The greatest challenge Boris has is the Ukraine position. [It’s] completely out of sorts with President Trump’s … He’s not a Trump whisperer.”
Who is the Trump whisperer?
A second person close to the Trump campaign confirmed it is Farage who remains Trump’s go-to guy for U.K. issues.
But the Johnson-backing Conservative shot back: “[Johnson] was there with a reason for being there that was worthwhile. He wasn’t just there to go to the convention because he felt like it.
“The fact that Boris met Trump for an hour speaks for itself. Nigel’s views on Ukraine are in the public domain from the election.”
This was a reference to Farage’s most difficult moment during the recent U.K. election campaign, in which he claimed the eastward expansion of NATO and the EU “provoked this war” in Ukraine. The comments sparked a days-long row in Britain, where support for Ukraine remains overwhelmingly strong.
Starmer called the remarks “disgraceful,” Johnson called Farage “morally repugnant” and the opposition Liberal Democrats accused him of being “an apologist for Putin.”
Farage staunchly denied these charges. But his remarks show the Reform UK leader is more willing than the rest of the U.K. political mainstream to hear out the Russian argument — making the chances of Labour ever working with him close to zero.
In contrast, some foreign policy experts believe Labour might actively welcome the shadow diplomacy of Johnson.
Karin von Hippel, director-general of the Royal United Services Institute security think tank, said Johnson had the potential to play an important role in trying to sway Trump to remain hawkish on Russia.
“It’s hard to know what convinces Trump to do anything, but I think it’s good he’s trying,” said von Hippel, who was also formerly a senior official in the U.S. State Department.
A brush with death
“Actually the Labour Party should — and probably does — appreciate what [Johnson] is doing. Ukraine really matters, and Boris really does care about that issue.”
Von Hippel added that suggestions Labour would struggle to deal with a second Trump White House, given the ideological differences in outlook, were a “misapprehension.”
“Both sides know that the relationship is too important — it’s too deep, it’s too long,” she said.
Back in Milwaukee, both Truss and Farage were keen to pay fealty to Trump. Appearing on the Reform leader’s GB News show, Truss said: “Unless we conservatives go and support Donald Trump and make it clear that we need him in the White House for the future, not just of America, for the future of the free world, we are in serious, serious trouble.”
For his part, Farage compared Trump’s recent close shave with an assassin’s bullet with his own brush with death in a serious plane crash in 2010, adding that he anticipated the former president would emerge a changed man. “If you’ve been through a near death experience within the last few days, it has to have an impact of some kind,” he said.
Regardless of how much influence Britain’s left or right end up wielding over Trump, there’s one person bound to be enjoying it all.
“I think Trump loves the fact that everyone’s coming to see him, whoever they are, whether it’s people who used to hate him in the Republican Party or whether it’s foreign leaders,” von Hippel said. “It makes him feel presidential — that’s why everyone kisses the ring.”