Nigel Farage could be ambassador to US if Trump wins, says ex-foreign secretary

Nigel Farage could be the next UK ambassador to the US if Donald Trump wins the presidency, ex-foreign secretary David Owen has said.

Lord Owen said appointing the ex-Brexit Party leader to the job to help keep Mr Trump onside was “not a totally outrageous suggestion”.

The former cabinet minister said Mr Farage could initially be sent out to Washington to help persuade the Republican to keep the US inside Nato if he wins a second term.

Lord Owen – Labour foreign secretary between 1977 and 1979 – said if may even be necessary to hand the hard-right politician one of the country’s top diplomatic roles.

“We’d better send old Farage out there to persuade Trump [about Nato],” he told the News Agents podcast. “I would certainly.”

He added: “I would hope it could be done without making him ambassador, as some people have suggested – but it’s not a totally outrageous suggestion.”

Mr Farage previously claimed that he “could be very useful” when the idea of him becoming ambassador to the US came up upon Sir Kim Darroch’s resignation in 2019.

When preparing to enter the White House, Mr Trump claimed that his friend would do a “great job” in the role. The then-Brexit Party chief raised eyebrows by meeting the president-elect at Trump Tower during the interim period in November 2016.

Nigel Farage introducing Donald Trump at a 2020 stump speech

Lord Owen – who quit Labour in the early 1980s to form a rival party that eventually became the Liberal Democrats –said his American wife was convinced Mr Trump was going to win November’s presidential election.

He also called on Joe Biden to make way for another Democrat to run against the Republican favourite. “He’s got a few more months, but he should say to the people, ‘I’m getting a bit