Pierre Poilievre, Canada’s defeated Conservative leader, is cursing Donald Trump. He was dead cert to become Prime Minister just a few weeks ago, with a massive 20-point lead in the polls. Even yesterday it still looked possible. But the Orange One has destroyed him.

“We’ll make Canada the 51st state!”, Trump vowed. The result? The Conservatives fell off a cliff, and Canada is faced with yet more years of declinist, globalist, woke liberalism. I feel for them. And it's Trump all over. It’s like he loves to be hated.

Yet he started his second term with promise. Many of us applauded his no-nonsense handling of illegal migration, his contempt for diversity and inclusion excesses and his understanding that biological men should never compete in women’s sports. With a few executive orders, he swept it all away. How refreshing, we enthused. If only we could have some of that over here, we sighed.

But that’s the trouble with Trump. No sooner has he done some good stuff that he does far worse. We’ll annexe Canada, he announced preposterously. Same with Greenland, he declared outrageously. Zelensky started that war with Russia, he lied through his shiny white teeth. And tariffs will make us all great again, he insisted implausibly.

So, after just 100 days in the White House, what do we give Trump out of ten? I’m struggling to go higher than three. Poilievre wouldn’t go above one. The people of Ukraine and Greenland? Zero. It all means that anyone allied to Trump had better watch out. And we know who that means in the UK. Yup, it’s you, Nigel Farage.

Alright, before we get too alarmist, let’s be clear that Reform is here to stay. Recent polls have them on top of the pile, leaving the hapless Tories miles behind. If a general election were held on Thursday instead of a smattering of local votes, Reform would be the largest party, and Labour sent packing. Farage gives himself a 45% chance of becoming Prime Minister, and I can’t disagree. Keir Starmer is right to be scared witless. Kemi Badenoch must be pulling her hair out.

Yet if Trump continues to scatter bullets at his closest allies, Farage could yet join Canada’s Poilievre as a victim. That’s the price you pay for getting too close to the world’s most powerful yet absurdly unpredictable man. Who, right now, would boast about being Trump’s British mate? It worked for Farage just a couple of months ago, but that seems like a different age. Trump’s impact on most voters is like a stink bomb in an elevator. According to YouGov, only 16% of British people say they have a positive view of him, down from around 30% just after Inauguration Day.

What does it all mean for Farage? It means he must keep Trump’s no-nonsense, woke-slaying best bits, distance himself from the economic lunacy and anti-NATO madness, and hope that the President, frankly, just calms down.

That’s no easy task. Farage has already fallen out with Elon Musk. Talk of a £100 million donation looked fanciful in January, and just plain ludicrous now. Farage rightly sees Tommy Robison as toxic, whereas Musk seems smitten. Farage rightly wants Ukraine to join NATO, whereas Trump says no way. He rightly calls out Trump’s tariffs, whereas the President reckons they’ll be America’s saviour.

It’s a tightrope none of us would envy. Yet Farage’s success could depend on it. Can he pull it off? A resounding victory this Thursday would be a great start.