Nigel Farage to start petition to secure Donald Trump the Nobel Peace Prize

'The only reason the North Korea relationship has come to this, is because he was tough'

Right-wing British politician Nigel Farage has said he will start a petition to have Donald Trump nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, saying the award would lose legitimacy in the eyes of millions if the US president had a successful North Korean summit and subsequently did not receive it.

Mr Trump is among those who believes he deserves becoming a recipient of the Norwegian-based prize and has claimed such an opinion is widely shared.

At a cabinet meeting in Washington this week, the president was asked by a reporter if he believed he deserved the prize.

“Everyone thinks so, but I would never say it,” Mr Trump said with a reported smile. He said he was more focussed on trying to reach a deal with North Korea, whose leader, Kim Jong-un, he is due to meet in Singapore on June 12 for what would me a landmark summit.

“The prize I want is victory for the world. Not for even here – I want victory for the world, because that’s what we’re talking about. So that’s the only prize I want,” he said.

Mr Farage, a long-time ally of Mr Trump who was the first British politician to meet the former reality television star after his surprise 2016 presidential victory, is among those who believe he should receive it.

While many European officials are furious with Mr Trump for unilaterally pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal, Mr Farage believes the US president has shown strong leadership.

“A lot of people find it difficult not to try and discredit everything Trump does, but I remember the hysteria over awarding the prize to Obama for things he might do,” Mr Farage told The Independent.

Mr Farage, who represents the UK Independence Party in the European Parliament, said after the Nobel Prize Committee met, he would be organising a petition and seeking the support of other prominent European figures. He said, that as an elected official, he was among those categories of people The Norwegian Nobel Committee permits to make nominations.

“The only reason the North Korea relationship has come to this [stage], is because he was tough,” said Mr Farage. He said he believed the US leader had taken a similar approach to Iran. He claimed Iran’s behaviour had become more aggressive, not less, since the signing of the 2015 deal, despite the International Atomic Energy Agency’s repeated confirmation that Tehran was complying with the terms of the deal.

He said at the moment, he suspected Mr Trump did not have a great chance of winning the award. Yet, if he had a successful meeting with Mr Kim, those chances would soar.

“If he pulls off this meeting with Kim with aplomb, and he is not awarded it, then the Nobel Prize would be delegitimised in the eyes of millions of people,” he said.

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of six awards given yearly by The Norwegian Nobel Committee. Nobel prizes are usually announced in October but awarded annually on December 10, the anniversary of death of Alfred Nobel, who gives his name to the awards. The deadline for the 2018 award was January 31, so Mr Trump would have to wait until 2019.

Nobody from the committee was available to speak about Mr Trump’s chances of winning the prize, but the organisation confirmed that Mr Farage’s role as an MEP made him a legitimate nominator.

Earlier this week, Berit Reiss-Andersen, the chairwoman of the committee, told the New York Times: “Part of the strength of the Nobel Peace Prize is that it is controversial.”

She added: “If it was a global consensus prize, it wouldn’t have the relevance and the authority that it actually has today.”

If Mr Trump were to win the award, he would become the the fifth American president to do so. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama are all Nobel winners. CNN said during a recent campaign-style rally in Michigan, the crowd broke out into a chant of “Nobel, Nobel” while Mr Trump was discussing his efforts in North Korea. The president smiled and said: “Thank you, that is very nice.”

In late April, South Korean President Moon Jae-in said that Mr Trump would be a worthy winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, following his own summit with Kim Jong Un.

“President Trump should win the Nobel Peace Prize. The only thing we need is peace,” said Mr Moon

Around 20 Republican members of the US House of Representatives have also written to the prize committee, nominating Mr Trump for his peace efforts on the Korean peninsula.