Nigel Farage failed to meet with Donald Trump despite flying all the way to Florida to dine at the US president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
The Reform UK leader told an audience at a Westminster event on Thursday night that he would be “dining at Mar-a-Lago tomorrow night”, where he would “reinforce the message” about Sir Keir Starmer’s beleaguered Chagos Islands deal, leading to assumptions that he would be dining with the US president.
But in a humiliating development, he flew around 4,500 miles – and never actually met Mr Trump during his visit.
The Financial Times reported that Mr Farage had not even received a formal invitation to meet the American president, having only been invited to Mar-a-Lago by a member of the club.
Instead, sources told the Financial Times Mr Farage had hoped to catch Trump for a conversation as the president was due to travel to Mar-a-Lago that day.
But Mr Trump ended up staying in Doral, according to the newspaper, leaving Mr Farage more than an hour’s drive away in Mar-a-Lago and at a loose end.
The Clacton MP’s failure to secure an audience with the American leader is the latest indication that the famously close relationship between the two politicians is cooling off. The pair formed a bond before and after 2016, the year when Mr Trump’s first term began and the UK voted for Brexit.
However, a representative for Mr Farage told The Independent he had never planned on meeting Mr Trump during his visit and had never said he was planning to.
Mr Trump has dramatically U-turned on his support for Sir Keir’s controversial Chagos Islands agreement in recent weeks, at one point describing it as an act of “great stupidity”.
Since then, ministers have said that discussions over handing the islands to Mauritius are continuing, with the government insisting the deal is necessary to secure the future of the crucial UK-US Diego Garcia military base.
Mr Farage, who has long opposed the Chagos deal and dubbed it a “surrender” treaty, told an event in Westminster on Thursday that he would discuss it at Mr Trump’s estate in Florida.
“We think this is the central plan for this government’s foreign policy, and we are beating them back,” Mr Farage said, according to GB News.
“President Trump has almost understood the deal, but I will be dining at Mar-a-Lago tomorrow night, and we will reinforce the message.”
The Reform UK leader denounced the agreement as “the worst deal in history” and an “absolute betrayal”.
He added: “We have got to keep fighting, we have got to keep the pressure up, we must not let our foot off this pedal, but for the first time in this battle... this feels more than winnable.”
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