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'Blue Labour' founder Lord Maurice Glasman - who reportedly met with Keir Starmer's Chief of Staff ahead of the Government's announcement of its tough new asylum policy - told Byline Times that Steve Bannon is one of the greatest politicians of our age, just months before the former Trump campaign manager was linked to Jeffrey Epstein.

Prior to the more recent revelations of the closeness of Epstein and Bannon, the Labour peer said that Donald Trump's former White House chief, Bannon, was one of the most important political figures of recent times because he had successfully built a nationalist working-class movement against mass immigration and globalisation in the United States.

Asked about Bannon's extreme views - such as those on Islam; his support for the AfD in Germany; and his claim during a far-right rally in France in 2018 that the crowd should "wear" accusations of racism, nativism, and xenophobia "as a badge of honour" - Glasman said "as the son of immigrants myself, I of course hate and disagree with these ideas".

"But, if we are to hold them off in Britain, we need a Blue Labour movement based on nationalist industrial revival," he added.

The release by the US House Oversight Committee of emails from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein has revealed that Steve Bannon was one of Epstein's most frequent visitors after his first conviction in 2008, but before his arrest in 2019 on suspicion of a much broader range of trafficking and sexual offences.

In emails and text messages, Bannon - whose War Room podcast had often platformed QAnon conspiracies that the Democratic Party is run by a paedophile ring - seemed unconcerned with Epstein's previous convictions, and planned with him how to fund and staff the extension of the 'Make America Great Again' movement to Europe.

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Epstein is documented as advising him on who to meet in Europe, planning his itinerary in Paris and Rome, and giving him advice on how to keep the financial structures opaque.

Among the topics discussed at that time were "Brexit" and the parliamentary tumult of Theresa May's premiership in 2018, when Bannon claimed he was liaising with Nigel Farage, Boris Johnson, and Jacob Rees-Mogg on how to "overthrow" the Government.

Farage has been a friend of Bannon's since 2012, and in a now-deleted video in 2016, Farage thanked Bannon and his publishing outfit, Breitbart, following the Brexit vote: "Well done, Bannon. Well done, Breitbart. You've helped with this hugely."

Glasman told this newspaper he was introduced to Bannon by Nigel Farage at Trump's second inauguration in January, which he was invited to by Vice President JD Vance.

Both Glasman and Farage are regulars on GB News, the channel co-owned by Sir Paul Marshall, which has recently launched a US-based show. It consistently frames the UK as in need of 'saving' by Trump's America.

In a recent interview with the broadcaster, the President reiterated his threat to sue the BBC for $1 billion over the editing of his speech on January 6, 2021, in a Panorama broadcast more than a year ago.

At Trump's inauguration, Bannon took Glasman to a Trump rally, which the peer said had opened his eyes to the energy of the 'MAGA' movement. Glasman has since appeared on Bannon's War Room podcast. He said he spoke to Bannon for several months after the inauguration.

Glasman said he also talks regularly with Farage, whom he ranks alongside Bannon as one of the most influential political movers in this era. With his belief that the Labour Party under Keir Starmer is in the same s...