Nick Cohen writes:

Nigel Farage clutched his pearls and resigned from Ukip last week, protesting that he of all people could not possibly associate with criminals. The decision of his successor Gerard Batten to hire convicted fraudster and inveterate yob Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson) was simply “too awful to contemplate”.

Farage isn’t always so choosy about the company he keeps. His alliance with “Ted” Malloch, a little man who thinks he’s a big deal, tells all you need to know about Farage and the movements that now dominate Britain, the US and the emerging dictatorships of eastern Europe.

You should remember Theodore Roosevelt Malloch – once heard, it’s not a name you forget. In the weeks after the 2016 presidential election, British broadcasters scrambling to find Trump shills couldn’t get enough of the Anglo-American academic. Grinning to the cameras, Malloch told the BBC that he was likely to be Trump’s ambassador to the EU. “I helped to bring down the Soviet Union,” he bragged, “so maybe there is another union that needs a little taming.” Farage was impressed and a friendship was born. “Ted Malloch is the boy!” he cried.

Malloch made all the right rightwing noises. Like so many extremists, like Farage himself, he saw Putin as an ally. [Continue reading…]