Donald Trump has claimed that Nigel Farage won more seats “than he was allowed to have” in the general election.

He made the bizarre comments as he once again showered praise on the Reform UK leader.

The right-wing party defied expectations to win five seats at the general election, with Farage himself becoming an MP at the eighth attempt.

Trump, who is once again the Republican candidate in this year’s US election, said: “I think Nigel is great, I’ve known him for a long time.

“He had a great election too, picked up a lot of seats, more seats than he was allowed to have actually. They acknowledged that he won but for some reason you have a strange system over there, you might win them but you don’t get them.”

His comments appeared to be a reference to the fact that the number of Reform UK seats was low compared to the total number of votes the party received.

They got five seats on 14% of the UK-wide vote, while the Lib Dems won 72 seats on 12% of the vote.

Speaking in the immediate aftermath of the election, Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice said: “That is blatantly not a properly functioning democratic system – that is a flawed system. The demands for change will grow and grow.”

Meanwhile Trump had dinner with Keir Starmer on Thursday night – the first time the two men have met.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, the former president said: “I actually think he’s very nice. He ran a great race, he did very well, it’s very early, he’s very popular.”

Foreign secretary David Lammy was also at the dinner, despite previously describing Trump as a “racist KKK and Nazi sympathiser”.