Reports: Trump Asked Brexit Architects To Oppose Wind Farms In Scotland

U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage smiles as he arrives at Trump Tower, Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
U.K. Independence Party leader Nigel Farage smiles as he arrives at Trump Tower, Saturday, Nov. 12, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
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During a meeting with leaders of the Brexit movement following the election, Donald Trump asked them to push back against offshore wind farms like the one that can be seen from his golf course in Scotland, according to reports in the New York Times and British paper The Express.

Trump has been fighting a wind farm off of the coast of Aberdeen for a while since the turbines can be seen from his golf course in Aberdeenshire, but he lost a court battle in December 2015.

Yet he raised the issue during a November meeting with Nigel Farage, the leader of the U.K. Independence Party, and two others involved in the Brexit campaign, Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore.

Wigmore, who coordinated the communications effort for the push for Britain to leave the European Union, told The Express and the New York Times that Trump asked them to oppose new wind farms.

“He did not say he hated wind farms as a concept; he just did not like them spoiling the views,” Wigmore told the New York Times.

He said that he and Banks already opposed wind farms and would be “campaigning against wind farms in England, Scotland and Wales.” Wigmore said that Trump “did suggest that we should campaign on it” and that the conversation “spurred us in and we will be going for it,” according to the New York Times.

Wigmore told The Express that Trump “is dismayed that his beloved Scotland has become over-run with ugly wind farms which he believes are a blight on the stunning landscape.”

Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks denied to the New York Times that Trump discussed wind farms during his meeting with Farage. When the Times told Hicks that Wigmore gave an account of the wind farm discussion, Hicks did not respond with further comment, according to the Times.

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