Nigel Farage has claimed that Downing Street has instructed cabinet ministers not to speak to him, as he offered to act as a "bridge" between the UK and President-elect Donald Trump.
The former Ukip leader told BBC Radio 4 that the alleged ban demonstrated the "small-minded, petty, tribal" nature of British politics. "If you wanted to get business from the biggest company in the world and there was someone there that had the contacts and connections, the first thing you do is to employ that person," he said.
Downing Street declined to comment on his latest remarks, having previously dismissed suggestions that Mr Farage could serve as a go-between, insisting there was "no vacancy". The claim comes weeks after Mr Trump tweeted that Mr Farage would do a "great job" as Britain's ambassador to the US, following their meeting in a gold-plated lift at Trump Tower.
Mr Farage, who was the first senior UK politician to meet Mr Trump after his election victory, said he could not make major decisions but could "help to be a bridge" between the UK government and the new US administration. He suggested a trade deal was "potentially there on offer" and that the incoming president was "a very big anglophile".
He added that Mr Trump's inauguration in a few weeks' time would be "good for us".
Addressing a question about a rise in hate crime since the EU referendum, Mr Farage said he had received ten death threats in the past fortnight. He acknowledged that "yobs and louts" had behaved badly since Brexit, but insisted they had been behaving badly before it too.
