STEPHEN GLOVER: Beware Nigel… trying like Trump’s lap canine – out-poodling even Blair – will alienate numerous British voters

Will Nigel Farage be our next prime minister? Lots of people think so. I sometimes do.

Even his enemies concede that he is an exceptionally talented and charismatic politician. He’s brave, good-humoured and quick-witted.

On policy he’s on the right side of history, particularly when it comes to immigration. Whereas Labour and (even more so) the Tories have presided over huge inflows,

Mr Farage has long argued for the much lower numbers that most British people plainly want.

Many on the Right, and some Labour voters, are attracted by his championing of lower taxes, less regulation, higher defence spending, and a more measured approach to net zero.

It’s no longer fanciful to imagine Reform challenging – or even eclipsing – the Tories in next year’s local elections and then at the general election, which Sir Keir Starmer will presumably delay for as long as possible, unless he is first led away by men in white coats.

I realise these are very early days but, by the side of Nigel Farage, Kemi Badenoch seems ponderous and underpowered. Maybe she’ll improve. I certainly hope so. Her enthusiasm the other day for a flat tax with everyone paying the same rate (a thought with which George Osborne once idiotically flirted) wasn’t encouraging.

Rather than musing aloud about arcane ideas that will never be put into practice, she should be eviscerating the Government over its dishonesty on tax, its attempt to inveigle us back into the EU, and now the so-called Waspi women, who had good reason to believe that Labour would help them.

Admittedly Kemi took a half-hearted swipe at Sir Keir yesterday at Prime Minister’s Questions on behalf of the Waspi women, before slaloming ineffectually towards pension credit. It really shouldn’t be so difficult to spear the heavy-footed, thin-skinned Starmer.

All in all, the outlook seems rosy for Mr Farage. He even has his own weeknight TV programme on GB News, though he doesn’t always turn up. Incidentally, he is a kinder interviewer, and much less apt to interrupt those with whom he disagrees, than former Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who appears after him.

However, there is one rather large fly in the ointment – a weakness that his political opponents can exploit, and will doubtless do so once they wake up to it.

Nigel Farage is a courtier of Donald Trump’s. I’d go further. He is a lap dog, forever popping into Trump Tower, or nipping down to Mar-a-Lago in Florida, where he has just been. On this occasion the President-elect was too busy to see his British acolyte.

I’m no fan of Trump. But even if I believed that he was the greatest statesman in the world and a fine human being, I’d have serious qualms about Farage being an intimate member of his court, and a wide-eyed advocate of his supposed virtues.

The United States is our closest ally, but it is another country, with its own interests. Tony Blair forgot this when he supinely supported George W. Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq, as well as the futile occupation of Afghanistan. Britain really did become America’s poodle.

There’s no reasonable objection to Farage being on good terms with Trump. That is welcome. It’s a question of distance. I cringe when I see the man who could be our next prime minister cosying up to the President-elect in what I can only describe as an undignified way. Nigel Farage is out-poodling Blair.

He is now bending the knee even further to American power and wealth by discussing with Elon Musk the possibility of the world’s richest man bankrolling Reform with untold millions.

Sages tell us that this would transform the party’s electoral fortunes. So it might. But some British voters – including me – don’t relish the prospect of a political party being funded by a wacky if brilliant American multi-billionaire.

Musk is a foreigner – South African-born (admittedly with a British grandmother) and now with American citizenship. Do we want such a man shaping the political landscape of this country?

Moreover, he will have a senior role in Trump’s administration, cutting government spending. This is a worthwhile project but the fact remains that Musk is not only an American businessman but also an American politician, who is intent on using his billions to refashion our country as if we were some far-flung colony of the Trump imperium.

My God, I understand that Britain is a diminished force in the world, and that nations no longer quake before our power. I fear that, with the hopeless Starmer in charge, our decline will gather force. I even wonder whether our denuded armed forces are able to protect us against Russian aggression.

But has it come to this: a possible future British prime minister looking like a Trump sycophant? He evidently thinks it entirely in order for his rising political party to be funded by a man who, for all his carping on X (formerly Twitter, which he owns), is not a citizen of this country.

What does this tell us about Farage? That, despite his charm and geniality, there is a lack of good judgment. I don’t doubt his patriotism. Of course not. I’m sure he wants Britain to be great again. But it won’t happen on the coat-tails of Trump or Musk, or indeed of any American politician.

There is a further objection. What happens to Reform’s political prospects if, as is not unlikely given Trump’s mercurial character and feeble grasp of detail, his second administration turns out to be as undistinguished as his first? Having lashed himself to his flawed American hero, Farage would share his failures.

How refreshing it would be if the leader of Reform made fewer pilgrimages to America once Trump is installed in the White House. How uplifting if he sometimes criticised the bombastic new President.

How encouraging if Reform were sustained by the subscriptions of its own members, and money from wealthy British donors.

But I don’t suppose Farage will take any notice. He is on a kind of high, with a roost – albeit not a very elevated one – near both the world’s most powerful man and its richest one.

Will Trump give his loyal disciple anything in return? I doubt it. There will surely be no US trade deal while Sir Keir Starmer is in No 10. By the time of the next British election, Trump will probably have retired to Mar-a-Lago, though I suppose he might be succeeded by his deputy, JD Vance, whom Farage has been buttering up.

No, Trump won’t give Nigel Farage much other than lots of claps on the back and empty compliments. But he might do him some damage. Reform’s enemies will criticise Farage for his too-close relationship with an American president, as well as with an American billionaire.

When I look at the Tories I see a tired, depressed party that seems not to be brilliantly led, carrying the heavy weight of past mistakes. I also see a party with a long and proud tradition, whose values remain grounded in British soil.