As a photo it is visually striking and politically resonant: Nigel Farage, the man who loudly proclaims he will be the UK’s next prime minister, alongside two extremely rich supporters, all bathed in the golden glow of his hero Donald Trump.
In terms of raw politics, the significance is what may follow from the talks involving the leader of Reform UK, the party’s new treasurer, Nick Candy, and Elon Musk at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida on Monday, immortalised in a photo eagerly released by Farage’s media team.
Musk, the world’s richest man, who spent more than $250m (£200m) of his fortune helping Trump regain the presidency, is rumoured to be so enamoured of Farage – and aghast at what he sees as a “woke” leftwing Labour government – that he may donate $100m to the populist rightwing Reform party.
This may or may not happen – and even if does, it remains to be seen how much impact such a windfall would have on a party Farage concedes is still lacking in organisation and election-winning knowhow.
But this is a photo that arguably sums up where UK politics, or at least a part of it, is right now. That is the second age of Farage as a domestic tribute act to Trump – one in which, Farage hopes, he also ends up with an election win.
For context, it is illustrative to look at another slightly gaudy photo, one taken almost exactly eight years ago when Trump had just won his first presidential term.
Also widely reproduced at the time, this showed Farage standing next to Trump in front of the gold-plated lifts at Trump Tower in New York, flanked by a group who greatly enjoyed being called the “bad boys of Brexit”.
This was a different era, and it is in some ways a markedly different image to the one from this week. The awkward stances and Trump’s raised thumb makes it look like a snatched photo between an indulgent celebrity and a group of excited fanboys.
Farage was already a significant political figure, fresh from the triumph of the Brexit referendum, but his entourage was slightly more low-rent, including Arron Banks, the insurance millionaire, and Raheem Kassam, a hard-right former Ukip activist who now scratches a living on the fringes of the Trump circus.
Eight years on, the differences are clear. Farage is no longer a supplicant lurking in the lobby of a Trump residence but is on the inside, holding talks with the man who is – at least for now – the returning president’s most influential acolyte.
The more freewheeling style of the second Trump term is reflected in the attire. The lineup outside the gold lift shows six men in near-identical dark suits. The Mar-a-Lago snap sees Farage and Candy in the same – although Candy eschews a tie – but Musk, fixing the camera with a curiously plastic half-grin, is dressed in a sheepskin-lined leather jacket.
Musk-watchers swiftly identified it as a much-seen staple of the billionaire’s wardrobe, made a few years ago by Belstaff, a UK company which began making protective gear for motorcyclists in the 1920s but now makes more leisure-oriented offerings for £1,000 or more.
Perhaps the most striking element of the new photo is the painting in the background, showing a much younger and suspiciously slim-looking Trump bathed in the glow of a setting sun while wearing what, to British eyes, looks like a white cricketing jumper.
This is The Visionary, a 1989 work by the late society portrait painter Ralph Wolfe Cowan, once described as “the Palm Beach Van Dyck”, who made a living from his generally flattering depictions of people including Monaco’s royal family, the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and the former first lady of the Philippines and shoe aficionado Imelda Marcos.
Cowan called his style “romantic realism”, a method summarised by one critic as making the subjects “20 pounds thinner and 20 years younger”.
The Trump portrait, which in fact shows him in tennis gear and hangs in the library of Mar-a-Lago, was originally left intentionally unfinished – one of Cowan’s trademarks – with Trump’s left hand little more than sketched. After much complaining from Trump, who did not appreciate this, Cowan updated the picture more than a decade later.
An updated version of the latest photo – could it show Farage the election triumphalist alongside Musk the UK mega-donor? – is awaited.
