How this has happened must be delegated to the cool judgment of history, if it has happened at all. It may be a mirage – one conjured by an addled mind to torment it even further that quickly dissolves when looked at straight on.

But at this moment, Nigel Farage appears the most powerful British politician on earth.

Admittedly, he isn’t beating much. A secluded Theresa May faces the dispiriting reality that she is no closer to having a clue how to navigate the labyrinth between here and Brexit than she was back in July.

If she and the Chancellor, Philip Hammond, have anything on speaking terms with a coherent economic policy, they keep it to themselves.

Nigel Farage jokes about Donald Trump groping Theresa May

Blatantly, she and Boris Johnson, the alleged Foreign Secretary, have no foreign policy whatsoever. Staggering at an arthritic snail’s pace out of Europe, relegated to ninth in line for the ritual phone call from the US President-elect, the chilling uncertainty of isolation seems the only certainty Britain has left.

It’s hard to discern what a forgivably reclusive PM is doing, other than struggling to project calm strength from a position of bowel-melting weakness.

With Farage, it couldn’t be easier. He is starring in “Mr Toad Goes To Washington”, a reworking of the Jimmy Stewart movie about the archetypal little guy from out of town whose cussed refusal to bend beneath the will of a corrupt political elite wins heartwarming reward.

While Theresa May stares at the phone wondering if President Pussygrabber will ever call back – and what on earth to say if he does – Farage rides the Trump Tower escalator in glory. In the penthouse, he is received with hugs and thumbs-up selfies as more than an honoured guest and sod-the-opinion-polls guru. According to one of Nigel’s old compadres from Ukip, which withers in his absence as he exponentially grows, Nigel is Trumpworld’s go-to guy on US relations with Britain and the EU. Believe that or not as you choose. From all we know of Trump, it sounds eerily plausible to me.

If Farage isn’t quite the de facto Foreign Secretary, why would he limit himself to such a trifling role? So far as access to and influence over the incoming president, he towers over Boris and this shell-shocked pygmy government like a Rotarian, beer-sodden Gulliver.

This may, as I said, be a hallucination. After his inauguration on 20 January, Trump might prove less unlike his predecessors when it comes to interacting with US allies than the initial signals imply.

But you wouldn’t bet on that from his appointment of Steve Bannon, previously chairman of Breitbart News, as his most significant adviser. That suggests his administration will be exactly the kind of repository for mega-maverick far right-wingers into which Nigel Farage would comfortably slot.

Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Show all 14 1 /14 Donald Trump's most controversial quotes Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Isis: "Some of the candidates, they went in and didn’t know the air conditioner didn’t work and sweated like dogs, and they didn’t know the room was too big because they didn’t have anybody there. How are they going to beat ISIS?" Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On immigration: "I will build a great wall — and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me —and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Free Trade: "Free trade is terrible. Free trade can be wonderful if you have smart people. But we have stupid people." PAUL J. RICHARDS | AFP | Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Mexicans: "When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that have lots of problems. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists." Getty Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On China: "I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them?... I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. You know where their United States headquarters is located? In this building, in Trump Tower." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On work: "If you're interested in 'balancing' work and pleasure, stop trying to balance them. Instead make your work more pleasurable." AP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On success: "What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts to each new twist of fate." Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On life: "Everything in life is luck." AFP Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On ambition: "You have to think anyway, so why not think big?" Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On his opponents: "Bush is totally in favour of Common Core. I don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. He's weak on immigration. He's in favour of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can't do it." Reuters Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Obamacare: "You have to be hit by a tractor, literally, a tractor, to use it, because the deductibles are so high. It's virtually useless. And remember the $5 billion web site?... I have so many web sites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a web site. It costs me $3." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On Barack Obama: "Obama is going to be out playing golf. He might be on one of my courses. I would invite him. I have the best courses in the world. I have one right next to the White House." PA Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On himself: "Love him or hate him, Trump is a man who is certain about what he wants and sets out to get it, no holds barred. Women find his power almost as much of a turn-on as his money." Getty Images Donald Trump's most controversial quotes On America: "The American Dream is dead. But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before and we will make America great again." GETTY

According to one of the “Brex Pistols” (as Farage and his mates wittily style themselves), Bannon assures them President Trump will discuss any policy proposals concerning Britain with Farage before he talks to Theresa May.

Trump, with so few political friends, evidently worships Farage as an inspirational bestie. If he does become an Oval Office player, either in a formal job or likelier floating about as a colourful eminence gris, how long would it take a humiliated May to accept the realpolitik and crawl to him for help?

For now, she sticks bravely with aloof contempt. A spokesman points out that Trump said he wants a Reagan-Thatcher relationship with her (as if Trump’s word on anything is a reliable indicator of what he thinks now or will say in five minutes). “I don’t remember there being a third person in that relationship,” added this spokesman of the 1980s lovefest.

I suppose these people have to say something. Personally, I’d have avoided any phrase which brings to mind the Prince of Wales’ first marriage. If Farage is Camilla in this threesome, it doesn’t bode so well for May.

Frankly, it doesn’t bode too spiffingly for any of us if Donald Trump intends to treat this transatlantic marriage as one of purest convenience, and starts making the amorous ship-to-shore calls to Farage before the honeymoon yacht is even out of dock.

But there comes a point when you have to accept that, for at least four years, we are stuck in this darkly surreal parallel universe.

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There also comes a time when the snarky chuckling at Nigel Farage needs to cease. Had it stopped a few years ago – had the political and media classes acknowledged his deceptively haphazard brilliance and responded to it – we might have avoided Brexit and whatever domino effect it had on America last week.

Instead, he was allowed to surf the wave of metropolitan mirth all the way to his exalted position, adroitly perched on the right hand of the next US President.