How Nigel Farage became the most influential politician in modern history by masterminding Brexit and inspiring Donald Trump’s US election victory…without ever becoming an MP
Nigel Farage will be remembered for having helped orchestrate two of the most momentous political shifts in modern history
THE world was left stunned when Donald Trump rode a wave of working class discontent to storm his way to the White House.
Lurking in the background was a man who had fought a similar and equally divisive battle - Brexit mastermind Nigel Farage.
Without ever being an elected MP, 52-year-old Farage will now be remembered for having helped orchestrate two of the most momentous political shifts in modern history.
The fact one man has played such a key role in both is astonishing.
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The culmination of Farage's 20-year campaign to persuade Britain to leave the European Union ended on June 26, when a referendum - promised by then Prime Minister David Cameron - ended with 52 percent of voters wanting to leave.
He immediately stood down as leader of Ukip, declaring it a "job done".
Following this journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer labelled him a "Marmite politician - you either love him or you hate him", in the .
She said: "Farage is probably the most single-handedly influential politician in Britain in the post-war years - and he doesn’t get much credit for that.
But he reappeared only months later in the US, appearing before thousands of Trump supporters to declare the candidate would bring "American independence" like that which he had brought to the UK.
He boasted of Trump and Brexit being "for the little people, for the real people" as he capitalised on a groundswell of resentment.
Farage said the UK made June 23 their "Independence Day" adding the nation "smashed the establishment".
"We did it, and everybody said we’d lose."
He then ran through a list of all of those who had said Brexit would kill off the UK economy, including global leaders and experts, saying they gave the British public “project fear” if the country wasn’t run by a “bunch of unelected old men in Brussels".
He said that the mass unemployment, and downward spiral in the economy that was predicted had not come to pass.
As the crowd cheered he told them: “We reached those people who had been let down by modern global corporatism, we reached those people who had never voted in their lives, but believed by going out voting for Brexit they could take back control of their country, take back control of their borders and get back their pride and self respect.”
And just days before election day, Donald Trump was promising that his victory at the polls would be like "Brexit plus, plus, plus".
Incredibly, Farage has already flown out to the states to continue advising Trump.
Pundits say he has now positioned himself as the British politician with the closest links to the US leader.
As Farage himself said yesterday: "Prepare for further political shocks in the years to come."
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