Barring some dramatic turnaround, the Brexit leader and former head of the UK Independent Party has accomplished his longtime goal of ejecting the United Kingdom from the European Union. Moreover, as Thursday’s Bloomberg Businessweek profile makes clear, he’s gone from leading a small, anti-immigration political party—which only recently got a major foothold in British politics—to being a worldwide symbol of what he sees as a populist uprising and white working class backlash.
Farage is now beginning a whole new act in American politics. He appeared at a campaign rally this year with Trump, who, Businessweek’s Joshua Green writes, “adopted Farage as something between a talisman and a mascot” and promised an election result that would be “Brexit times 50.” After delivering on that promise, the president-elect made sure Farage was the first foreign politician he met with and even lobbied on Twitter for Farage to be Britain’s ambassador to the United States.
Now Farage is running around Washington as a right-wing celebrity among Republicans, going to parties, taking selfies with admirers, and pitching members of Congress like Senator Rand Paul on his latest political project: a bilateral trade agreement between America and the United Kingdom. “His ideas will always be listened to seriously in a Trump White House,” Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, told the magazine.
The best part for Farage is that he has no real responsibilities. He can bask in his newfound influence and celebrity, and promote his agenda—which partly is to promote himself. But unlike Trump, he doesn’t bear the burden of actually having to govern.