Nigel Farage says Donald Trump has to meet PM so No10 can 'mend fences'

Nigel Farage has insisted Donald Trump will have to deal with Theresa May, despite her top team being "rude" about him.

The interim Ukip leader used media appearances during a US visit to warn that Downing Street needed to mend fences with the shock winner of the race for the White House.

Asked on Fox News why the President-elect should meet the PM after the things senior Tories had said about him, Mr Farage said: "I think he has got to meet her.

"Mrs May's team have been quite rude about Trump, so there are some fences to be mended.

"Trump is an Anglophile, he understands and recognises what our two great nations have done together between us. And, thank goodness, we are coming towards the end of an American president who loathed Britain.

"One of the things we can do, we can have between us a sensible trade relationship, cut tariffs, we are massive investors in each other's countries. There's a bright future."

Mr Farage was talking to Mr Trump's inner team Saturday, but Ukip sources say there is no firm scheduled meeting with the President-elect, but the interim party leader would be delighted if such an opportunity arose.

The interim Ukip leader has suggested that "insulting" comments about Mr Trump by senior Tories may have been the reason why Mrs May was only tenth on the President-elect's list of foreign leaders to call after his surprise win last Tuesday.

Mr Farage's remarks came after it emerged Mrs May's two joint chief's of staff had attacked Mr Trump on social media before taking up their current posts.

Fiona Hill posted last December: "Donald Trump is a chump," while her colleague Nick Timothy wrote in March: "American politics was depressing enough before Trump took off."

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was scathing about Mr Trump's attitude to Muslims while he was mayor of London last December, saying: "I think Donald Trump is clearly out of his mind if he thinks that's a sensible way to proceed, to ban people going to the United States in that way, or to any country.

"What he's doing is playing the game of the terrorists and those who seek to divide us. That's exactly the kind of reaction they hope to produce.

"I think he's betraying a quite stupefying ignorance that makes him frankly unfit to hold the office of President of the United States."

While pushing for a meeting between the President-elect and Mrs May, the interim Ukip leader appeared to make light of a now infamous 2005 videotape of Mr Trump in which he boasted about being able to grope women because of his celebrity.

"I will be encouraging him to make the UK his priority. I am now going to become a diplomat - 'Come and schmooze Theresa, don't touch her for goodness' sake'. If it comes to it I could be the responsible adult and make sure everything's okay," he told TalkRadio.