Trump's eclectic inner circle in London: from Nigel Farage's former adviser to the 'bad boys of Brexit'

It was as though they’d blinked and it was 2016 again, or so say several of the 200-or-so politicos, journalists, socialites and business people gathered in the Boisdale restaurant in Canary Wharf the Wednesday before last.

The event was Nigel Farage’s 60th birthday party, a surreal and star-studded bash featuring everything from former PM Liz Truss doing the conga alongside "bad boys of Brexit" Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore, to a slowly-melting ice sculpture of the former Brexit Party leader. The guest of honour? None other than former POTUS Donald Trump himself.

Trump didn’t jet into London on this particular occasion. He appeared by video link, smiling in front of a US flag as he praised Farage for his “prophetic” leadership and a “truly remarkable” 60 years. But his on-screen appearance didn’t stop the volume of cheering among the eclectic sea of guests sipping margaritas alongside the former Brexit party leader. “It was pretty boisterous”, says one attendee who spotted one of the singers on-stage wearing a Make America Great Again (MAGA) cap and several guests sporting cardboard cut-out Trump masks.

Talk of a Trump sequel in the White House might be easy to laugh at or dismiss if it weren’t for the fact that Trump has proven the naysayers wrong once already. Despite being banned from the ballot paper in two US states and multiple legal hurdles including becoming the first former US president to stand trial in a criminal case this week, the fake-tanned former leader has emerged as the Republic candidate for the US presidency. It’s seen foreign secretary David Cameron — another ghost of 2016-politics-past — jetting into Florida for a meeting about Ukraine with Trump at Mar-a-Lago last week, despite previously describing Trump as “stupid”, “wrong” and “misogynistic”.

Current opinion polls say Trump is hot on Joe Biden’s heels in the race to become the 47th president of the United States in November. It’s no wonder Farage and his merry band of right-wing Trumpettes on this side of the Atlantic are choosing to keep him increasingly close. “I would rather have Trump than Biden,” Truss said in February as a new poll found that 31 per cent of Conservatives would prefer a Trump victory to a Biden one in November, compared to 24 per cent of overall British voters. Fellow Tories Jake Berry, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson have followed suit, with Johnson recently saying Trump’s renewed leadership could be “just what the world needs” if he backs Ukraine. The former UK PM will be golfing at Mar-O-Lago before we know it, suggest commentators — though he might need to fight Farage for that spare seat in that golf cart first.

Farage — the Brit who insiders believe Trump is most likely to consult if he returns to the White House — has already made one visit to Trump’s Florida residence this year, when he jetted into the US last month for a whirlwind tour. He’s already tipped himself for an ambassadorial or special envoy role to Trump in Britain, suggesting last week that he’d be willing to work alongside a Labour government as a trade envoy if Trump does get elected. “Nigel's friends have been talking up the idea,” say allies. “He could be a special envoy to the UK and, interestingly, to the European Union. Trump thinks it's essential Farage is on the front line.”

So is David Cameron’s recent Mar-a-Lago visit actually as significant as commentators are saying? Why is such a considerable chunk of the Tory right backing him? And who else has made it into the ex-president’s London power base ahead of his 2024 run?

Among the attendees cheering Trump at Farage’s birthday bash were the multimillionaire Matt Fiddes, a former bodyguard of Michael Jackson who runs a successful martial arts school business and owns the largest privately-owned property portfolio in Devon, and British businessman Arron Banks, the former Leave campaign donor and one half of the so-called ‘bad boys of Brexit’ who has previously been a guest at Trump’s ritzy Mar-a-Lago club. With Banks previously praising Trump for connecting with voters on an emotional level because “facts don’t work” and retweeting pictures of Trump’s appearance at the Farage party this month, his return to politics certainly isn’t out of the question for the Brexit donor.

If it’s loyalty that Trump chooses to prioritise when forming his inner circle across the pond, several other Londoners could be in the running. British blogger and activist Raheem Kassam, a former chief advisor to Farage who once mounted a bid for the UKIP leadership, appeared alongside Farage and Banks in that now-notorious gold lift photo at Trump Towers in 2016. He has since worked as editor of alt-right news site Brietbart News and now serves as editor-in-chief of right-wing blogging platform The National Pulse, for which he interviewed Trump as recently as last autumn — a career highlight he has pinned proudly to the top of his Instagram grid.

Also in that famous gold lift photo was Andy Wigmore, another key cog in the Leave EU machine and the other half of the ‘bad boys of Brexit’. The former diplomat and ex-competitive shooter, who once represented Belize in the Commonwealth Games, has since retired from politics, reinventing himself as an arable farmer in Buckinghamshire (and part-time film extra and ‘lab rat’ for the Covid vaccine), but commentators say he could be back in a flash if Farage does take on an envoy role to Trump 2.0.

Trump’s recent fundraiser events have also offered a key window into his UK inner circle. The former POTUS has been busy assembling a loyal team of key donors on the other side of the pond and several of those in attendance have London links. Among them: New York Jets owner Woody Johnson, Trump’s former ambassador to London who tabled a $2bn offer to buy London’s Chelsea football club in 2022; and billionaire hedge-fund tycoon Robert Mercer, a long-time friend of Farage’s and conservative mega donor who was another key cog in the UK’s Brexit campaign back in 2016 after he offered the free services of his advertising business Cambridge Analytica. Both he and his daughter Rebekah Mercer, also a Republican megadonor, had previously told friends they had no plans to support Trump’s 2024 campaign, but commentators say their attendance at two key fundraising events in the last month suggests a rekindled relationship with the former POTUS.

The same might not be said for David Cameron, who failed to persuade Trump to push through $60bn in military aid for Ukraine during their meeting last week. But it is certainly looking true for a growing number of his fellow Conservatives. Truss, Johnson, Berry and Rees-Mogg are among those to have expressed support for Trump since he launched his comeback, with commentators saying his values and tactics seem increasingly aligned with that of certain Conservatives at a time when their party is in the midst of an identity crisis.

Trump’s UK inner circle doesn’t solely comprise of the old faces, however. Mayoral hopeful Susan Hall might not have been among the conga line of famous figures at Farage’s bash, but she has long declared herself a fan of Trump fan and could certainly be a boost to his campaign if something dramatic changes and she is elected as mayor of London next month.

So will Keir Starmer and his left-wingers feel an increasing pressure to cosy up to the former POTUS in the coming months? If David Cameron’s recent Mar-a-Lago stopover is anything to go by, quite possibly, say insiders. Indeed Starmer himself — a staunch critic of Trump’s policies, most recently his “bad faith” criticism of Nato — has admitted that a Labour government would “have to make it work” if Trump once again became president.

Whether he likes it or not, making that relationship work might just look like a trade envoy in the shape of someone like Nigel Farage. Farage suggested the gig himself last week, saying he’d be “very interested” to take the role of an intermediary between Trump and an incoming Labour government if the former POTUS does become president.

“There needs to be some sort of envoy between an incoming Labour government with people like David Lammy – who’s probably going to the foreign secretary, who’s been really quite abusive about Trump,” he said, adding: “There’s no way around it, our relationship with America on defence is absolutely crucial. In terms of trade, we are still the biggest foreign investor in America, they are the biggest foreign investor here.”

Not everyone will agree with Farage on the former statement, but few would disagree with him on the latter. Although Farage as Labour trade envoy seems pretty far-fetched, if Trump does get elected for a second term in November, Farage, Truss and their merry conga-line of MAGA supporters might just be the ones having the last laugh after all.