Trump ally and the driving force behind the U.K.'s Brexit from Europe Nigel Farage has blasted the European Commission (EC) president for his call to create a European army.
Following the U.S presidential election last week, EC president Jean-Claude Juncker said Europe had to recognize the need to take care of its own defense needs.
"The Americans, to whom we owe much, will not ensure the security of the Europeans in the long term. We have to do this ourselves," Juncker told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday night.
"That is why we need a new start in the field of European defense, up to the goal of setting up a European army."
However anti-European Union campaigner and ally of Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, has told Sky News that Juncker's plan is laughable.
"You've got Jean-Claude Juncker using the election of President Trump as a means of trying to destroy Nato by pushing his ridiculous dream of a European army," he said Monday.
The Brexit leader also argued that Europe's criticism of Nato provided more of a security threat than Donald Trump in the White House.
"But the more we hear from the European Union that they wish to brush Nato aside, the more I think it will be wrong to view Trump as being a threat to our security, but increasingly the European Union that is."
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has himself criticized Nato on the campaign trail, stating he wanted other member countries to pay more in to the defense alliance organization.
Farage said he agreed with Trump's stance as there had been no proper review of the organization since the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989.
EU Army plans
In June, Federica Mogherini, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, published a document calling for Europeans to "take greater responsibility for our security".
On Thursday last week she said the EU must now strengthen militarily in response to Trump's victory.
'In a changing global landscape, Europe will be more and more an indispensable power,' she said.
Professor Malcolm Chalmers, Deputy Director-General of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) said in a note Friday that Trump's questioning of the value of America's military alliances "cannot be assumed to be passing fancies".
Calling for the United Kingdom to review its post-Brexit defense capabilities, Chalmers argued that the U.K.'s historic skepticism towards EU defense cooperation should be revisited.
And Chalmers said Trump's dislike of Nato could make a European Army a necessary choice.
"Given the enhanced risk that an unpredictable U.S. president could veto future use of Nato as an organizer of future collective action, the U.K. may also see a shared interest with its European allies in creating a more credible institutional back-up," he said.