When Donald Trump was in the depths of his long, taxing presidential campaign, there was one foreign leader besides Vladimir Putin who stuck loyally by his side—and he earned a victory lap in Trump Tower’s golden doorway.
Fittingly, it was Nigel Farage (pictured above), the interim leader of the populist United Kingdom Independence Party. In June, he won his own long-shot victory when Britons voted to leave the European Union in a referendum known as Brexit. He was so surprised by the victory that he resigned, but returned to the position last month when his successor stepped down.
The two men of the people shared their photo opportunity on Nov. 12, four days after the US election. Farage met Trump along with a retinue that included UKIP fundraisers and a Breitbart writer, part of the global populist establishment. “We’re just tourists!” Farage proclaimed.
But he was no tourist during the election season. Campaigning alongside Trump—who proclaimed himself “Mr. Brexit”—before a crowd in Jackson, Mississippi, Farage delivered a message that will sound familiar to the many trying to make sense of the results of the US election.
“We did it—we made June 23 our independence day when we smashed the establishment,” Farage said of the Leave campaign. “We reached those people who have never voted in their lives but believed they could take back control of their country, take back control of their borders, and get back their pride and self-respect.”