Nigel Farage, Britain’s best-known Brexiteer, is teaming up with Trump supporters to raise money to take on George Soros and promote Britain’s departure from the European Union.
Farage attended the New York launch of the group, World4Brexit, on Thursday night along with Corey Lewandowksi, the former Trump campaign manager, and Phil Bryant, the Republican governor of Mississippi.
Donations will be used to promote the benefits of Brexit to the U.K. and the world said Farage, pushing back against a global elite intent on stifling the will of the British people who voted to leave the EU Money will not be be used to fund political campaigns.
“This is a counterblast to George Soros,” Farage told the Washington Examiner. The billionaire investor’s Open Society Foundation has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into groups such as Best for Britain, which campaign in favor of the EU.
World4Brexit is set up as a 501(c)(4) group, which means donors can remain anonymous. Farage said there was nothing improper about such an arrangement.
“George Soros funds every single one of the pro-EU groups in the U.K. and it’s quite legal to do so as long as it is outside of election time,” said Farage. “Why should they be able to do whatever they want and we can’t?”
The World4Brexit group is expected to draw support from other figures who have been close to Trump, including Steve Bannon, who served as White House chief strategist.
Farage told the Washington Examiner the idea was to replace the negativity of anti-Brexit campaigners with a positive message, and that he hoped it would win the support of everyone from orange growers in Florida to cocoa farmers in Ghana who face tariffs or fall foul of EU regulations.
“It is a chance to advertise, to say there’s a big world out there,” he said. “So it’s a very positive campaign that Brexit opens up doors.”
The group is chaired by Peggy Grande, former executive assistant to Ronald Reagan.
Its funding documents say the group will “operate exclusively for the promotion of civic action and social welfare by promoting the awareness of the impact of the departure of United Kingdom from European Union,” and “encourage and advocate citizen participation in political, civic, and governmental events and associated activities regarding the departure of United Kingdom from the European Union.”
