Steve Bannon boasted about Farage ties in exchange with Epstein
Former Donald Trump strategist Steve Bannon boasted he had become an adviser to right-wing British politician Nigel Farage in a message to disgraced child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein in March 2018.
This comes as an image has surfaced of Bannon posing for a photo in January 2025 with a smiling Matt Goodwin, the candidate for Farage's Reform UK in the crucial Gorton and Denton by-election this month.
Newly released files show Epstein and Bannon messaging each other on 10 March 2018, arranging to meet in Paris.
That day, Bannon gave a speech to France's far-right Front National party, telling the event that "history is on our side and will bring us victory".
Bannon said: "You are part of a movement that is bigger than that in Italy, bigger than in Poland, bigger than in Hungary."
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After the speech Epstein messaged Bannon, saying: "Very well done , congratulations!"
Bannon replied, boasting that he had become "advisor to front [National]", as well as Matteo Salvini, Italy's interior minister at the time, the Alternative fur Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Farage in Britain.
Bannon said that "next may is European Parliament elections" and that "we can go from 92!seats to 200" and "shut down any crypto legislation or anything else we want".
Epstein replied: "Roger that".
Populist alliance
This came less than two years after the UK voted to leave the European Union in a referendum considered to have been heavily influenced by Farage, one of the most prominent campaigners for Brexit.
In May 2019, it emerged that in 2017 and 2018, Farage discussed the idea of fronting an international alliance of populist right-wing politicians with Bannon.
At this point, Bannon and Epstein were becoming close allies. The Epstein files have revealed that Epstein offered Bannon accomodation on his island and even arranged dinners for him in Europe.
Bannon and Epstein kept up a regular correspondence.
In November 2018 while in Britain, Bannon told Epstein he had "gotten pulled into the Brexit thing this morning with Nigel, Boris [Johnson] and [Jacob] Rees Mogg".
Epstein advised Bannon to stay in Britain as long as possible, and Bannon replied that the country was in a "hot mess", according to Byline Times.
In January 2025, the academic-turned-GB News presenter Matt Goodwin, now Reform's candidate in the upcoming Gorton and Denton by-election, met Bannon.
In a Substack post in January last year, he said he "joined a meeting with the leaders of Europe’s anti-establishment parties" in Washington, DC.
"I also attended Nigel Farage’s ‘Stars and Stripes’ party at the Hay Adams Hotel, which was absolutely packed with countless American and British politicians and donors, offering a sharp contrast between Nigel Farage’s visible and growing influence in Washington and Keir Starmer who was nowhere to be seen in Washington."
Goodwin added that "one of my most interesting discussions was at another party, hosted by Steve Bannon, Donald Trump’s former (and no doubt ongoing) consiglieri".
He posted a photo of himself shaking hands with Bannon.
Bannon told him that the Conservative party was "finished", Goodwin said.
He added that Bannon believed Reform "look much better placed to pick up and run with the ongoing realignment of British politics —to drive home the same kind of rebellion that America is witnessing today".
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