#Brexit - Ex-Trump strategist Bannon targets Britain in anti-EU campaign

He held a series of meetings in London this month after launching a Brussels-based political organization he says is intended to undermine, and ultimately paralyse, the EU.

He said he was already raising funds from unspecified European sources and that his foundation would help nationalist movements around Europe to build up their polling, messaging and political “analytics” capabilities.

Bannon said Britain’s departure from the European Union was “fundamentally going to change” European politics and forecast it would fuel a substantial anti-EU result in the European Parliament elections.

Prime Minister May’s plans to leave the EU, which include Britain keeping a close trading relationship with the bloc on goods, have left her politically vulnerable.

Bannon said he had been in direct contact with Johnson and two other potential challengers to May: Michael Gove, who is still a member of May’s cabinet, and Jacob Rees-Mogg, a leader of an anti-EU Conservative Party faction.

The three are among the most prominent members of a section of the party which campaigned forcefully to leave the EU.

“Boris Johnson is one of the most important persons on the world stage today,” Bannon said. He described Johnson as “his own guy” and said he had “texted a lot” with him and spoken by phone with him during this month’s London trip.

Johnson and Rees-Mogg did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment on their contacts with Bannon. A spokesman for Gove said the British politician had once briefly encountered Bannon and that two meetings to discuss US politics had been explored but never took place.

“Michael has never had a meeting with Mr Bannon or discussed these issues with him,” Gove’s spokesman said in an emailed response to a Reuters question on whether the two men had discussed anti-EU politics.

Bannon said he was already engaging pollsters and “working on messaging” for next May’s European Parliament campaign.