Trump Ally And Brexit Champion, Nigel Farage, Hired By Fox News

Nigel Farage has a new job: paid commentator on the Fox News Channel and the Fox Business Channel, according to multiple media organizations.

The gig is effective immediately for the charismatic former leader of the pro-Brexit United Kingdom Independence Party (Ukip) who also hosts a London-based radio show on the LBC network. Presumably, he will do most of the Fox live shots by satellite link from London, unless he happens to be on this side of the pond at the time.

The mastermind behind Brexit, Farage was the first foreign politician that met with then President-elect Donald Trump at Trump Tower just a few days after the November 8 election. Farage, who attended the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July as an observer, also spoke about the upset Brexit win at a Trump rally in Mississippi in August, from which he and the future president apparently formed a bond.

During the U.S. campaign, Farage made many television appearances in his country as a vocal Trump supporter, as well as showing up on American TV from time to time.

Despite a recommendation contained in a tweet by Trump, British Prime Minister Theresa May, the leader of the Conservative Party, has so far been unwilling to name Farage as an ambassador to the U.S. or, absent a vacancy, even some kind of special envoy to the Trump administration, however.

The London Telegraph quotes Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant as saying that Nigel Farage will become a “close but unofficial adviser” to the president.

In August, Trump — a former Democrat and independent who ran for president as a Republican — issued a tweet predicting that people would soon be calling him “Mr. Brexit,” in the context of forecasting a similar surprise victory, contrary to the polling data and media punditry, for his populist, America-first movement.

“The move provides an unlikely American megaphone for Mr. Farage, a chief architect of the campaign in Britain to leave the European Union and a friend of Mr. Trump, who can now command the audience of the country’s most-watched cable-news network,” the New York Times pointed out about the Farage hiring as a regular contributor by Fox News.

Farage stepped down as Ukip leader shortly after winning the Brexit referendum. Farage’s number two, Paul Nuttall, was elected Ukip leader in late November after months of chaos and disarray in the party that is documented here.

Farage is currently in D.C. for the inauguration festivities. At a party on Thursday night, the ex-Ukip leader remarked about Trump that he is “the only person I have ever met in my life who makes me feel like an introvert” and “Brexit is great, but Trump is Brexit plus plus plus,” the Guardian reported.

Nigel Farage also explained at the pre-inauguration party that “Through most of my life, what happens in America in terms of social trends or developments, we follow, four or five years later. America is the leader. Now I would like to think, in my own little way, that what we did with Brexit was the beginning of what is going to turn out to be a global revolution, and that Trump’s victory is a part of that,” Breitbart London detailed.

YouTube contains a full library of Farage’s feisty speeches, debates, and often contentious media interviews over the years, all suggesting that he could be one of the best orators on the world stage, whether you agree with his views or not. As alluded to above, the populism and anti-globalism that has given rise to UKIP also partially parallels the success of President Trump and, to a lesser extent, Bernie Sanders, in the U.S.

As leader of UKIP and a longtime member of the European Parliament, Farage worked tirelessly for more than two decades to extricate Britain from the European Union, which culminated in the successful vote for leave/out in the national Brexit referendum on June 23, 2016.

Relentless pressure from Farage and UKIP — along with Euroskeptics in then-Prime Minister David Cameron’s own Conservative Party — is credited with compelling Cameron to authorize the Brexit vote in the first place. In the run-up to the referendum, Cameron campaigned for the unsuccessful “remain” or stay side. He resigned from government soon after the Brexit win and was succeeded by Theresa May.

Prime Minister May has promised to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, which begins the formal exit process from the EU, by the end of March.

Given the success of Nigel Farage and the grassroots Brexit cohort, there is now a movement for Brexit-style referendums in other European countries, such as France, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, and elsewhere on the continent, as populist/nationalist parties — not all of which fit neatly into the news media’s right or left pidgeonhole — gain further traction.

[Featured Image by Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP Images]