Nigel Farage plans inauguration party as Europe's far-right leaders visit US

Nigel Farage, the Brexit leader, will be hosting an inauguration party on Thursday night in Washington, just a few hundred yards from the White House.

It will be an extravagant event reportedly taking up the entire top floor of one of the city’s most prestigious and expensive hotels. Organisers say at least 500 of the US political and media elite have been invited and predict that Donald Trump, on the eve of his presidency, will drop by.

Trump has been unstinting in his praise for Farage, seeing Brexit as a forerunner for his own mould-breaking victory, and even recommended that the former Ukip leader should take over as UK ambassador to Washington. Farage, who will be a guest of the Mississippi governor, Phil Bryant, at the formal inauguration ceremony, has said he is moving to the US and has offered his services as a Middle East negotiator for the incoming president.

But Farage will not be the only foreign rightist leader in Washington for Friday’s inauguration ceremonies, seeking to network with US counterparts in hopes of benefiting from some of the reflected glamour and authority of the US presidency.

The head of Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO), Heinz-Christian Strache, has said he was coming to Washington for meetings, but he did not say who he was hoping to see. The anti-immigrant FPO has said its officials have already met Trump’s designated national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and other members of the president-elect’s team. Strache said he would be going to Washington this week as part of an FPO delegation.

“There is a series of invitations to talks with interesting political representatives of the United States on the sidelines of the US president’s inauguration on our packed schedule,” Strache said.

Trump’s dismissive attitude to the European Union, and his praise for Brexit, has made him a beacon for nationalist, anti-immigrant parties from Europe hoping to receive the same warm reception as Farage. The leader of France’s Front National, Marine Le Pen, was spotted drinking coffee in the basement of Trump Tower in New York last week, taking an unannounced break from the presidential campaign in which she is a leading contender. She described her stay in New York as a private visit and Front National party officials refused to say whether she was meeting Trump or anyone on his team. Asked if anyone from the Front National was going to Washington for the inauguration, an official in Le Pen’s office said “not that we’re aware of”.

Most European far-right leaders, such as Le Pen and Frauke Petry of Alternative for Germany, who see themselves as Trump’s European counterparts will be attending a conference in Koblenz on Saturday.

The Australian nationalist party, One Nation, is sending a representative to the inauguration, Brian Burston, who intends to go in place of its leader, Pauline Hanson. However, there is controversy over how the invitation came to be issued. The Republican congressman who made the tickets available, Adam Kinzinger, said he did not intend to offer them to One Nation, but had been asked if he had any spare tickets by the Australian embassy, according to Buzzfeed.

The Australian foreign ministry said it had received “multiple requests” from the party for tickets and so had asked a number of congressional offices if they still had any spare, adding: “The tickets are not yet available for collection.”

At least one disruptive figure in European politics who had planned to attend has been barred from coming by the current US administration. Milorad Dodik, the Moscow-backed separatist Bosnian Serb leader, was refused a diplomatic visa. Dodik claimed to have received an official invitation but Bosnian media reported he had in fact bought a ticket for the accompanying balls.