Nigel Farage suggests Donald Trump's Canada '51st state' of America comments backfired

Donald Trump's bizarre claims of Canada becoming the "51st state" of America helped Mark Carney's victory in the country's election, has said.

It comes after Mr Carney - a former Bank of England governor - turned around the Liberal's grim fortunes to retain his position as PM. During the election contest he rallied against the US President's odd comments about Canada.

After winning the election on Tuesday, Mr Carney hit back at an "American betrayal" amid threats and tariffs against Canada during the campaign. He added: “As I have been warning for months, America wants our land, our resources, our water, our country. But these are not idle threats. President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us."

Speaking on Wednesday, Mr Farage told Times Radio: "What's happened in Canada is extraordinary. Quite where this 51st state stuff came from Trump, I simply don't know."

Pressed on whether his old pal's comments had worked in Mr Carney's favour, Mr Farage said: "It does seem to have done, yeah. Well, frankly without a doubt it has. Our interests with America are similar, not symmetrical. I agree with much of what Trump is doing on the domestic agenda, other things I disagree with."

It comes just weeks after the former leader also compared . Speaking earlier this month, he said: "I think Trump did too much too soon, rather like did a couple of years ago. I've never in my life before seen stock markets fall quickly and bond markets fall at the same time. There's little doubt Scott Bessent, the Treasury Secretary, who is also a friend of mine, played a decisive role in saying 'woah we've gotta ease back on this'."

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Ahead of tomorrow's local elections, Mr Farage also claimed it was "possible" he could become Prime Minister - despite Reform UK having just four MPs.

As his party gears up for a major fight with in the Runcorn by-election on the same day, the Reform UK leader said the "gap is closing". He said: "Let's see what happens. It's Labour's 16th safest seat in the country. All I can tell you every time I go back I feel the gap with Labour is closing. I think we're in for a real chance."

He added: "I'm going for gold - I'm not doing expectation management - we're going out to win. That is what we're trying to do and we've got a chance of doing it."

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