A leading press freedom group has accused Reform UK of drawing from the “authoritarian playbook” by blocking media outlets from attending its annual conference this weekend.

The party informed DeSmog and the New World yesterday that its journalists would not be accredited for this year’s event. It did not offer an explanation.

The New World (formerly the New European) is a weekly newspaper with 35,000 subscribers whose contributors and editors include former New Labour communications chief Alastair Campbell, former global editor of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism James Ball, and former Spectator editor Matthew d’Ancona.

DeSmog is one of the UK’s leading climate investigations platforms. This year alone it has published stories in partnership with the likes of the BBC, The Guardian, the Financial Times, Private Eye, and The Mirror.

“It is shocking to see UK political parties seeking to pick and choose who can report on them,” said Fiona O’Brien, UK director of Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

“For democracy to work, journalists must be free to cover political events like party conferences and hold those in power to account, on behalf of the public.

“Reform UK’s actions in recent weeks – which include banning councillors from speaking to local journalists and falsely accusing journalists of activism – are straight out of the authoritarian playbook and should immediately be reversed.”

Reform’s leader of Nottinghamshire County Council, Mick Barton, has banned his councillors from speaking to local press outlet the Nottinghamshire Post and its online arm Nottinghamshire Live. The ban followed critical coverage of Reform by the publication, whose journalists were accused of acting “as activists” by the party’s deputy leader Richard Tice.

Reform’s leader Nigel Farage is paid more than £300,000 a year as a presenter on the anti-climate media outlet GB News, while Tice was formerly employed by GB News and its Murdoch-owned rival TalkTV.

Farage sported a GB News badge in Congress yesterday as he testified to U.S. lawmakers about supposed “free speech” issues in the UK.

The Reform leader used the session to compare Britain to North Korea, and to urge the U.S. to punish the UK for its alleged free speech infringements.

However, Farage was also held to account for his own questionable free speech record. Democrat Jamie Raskin asked the Reform leader: “Why do you ban journalists who oppose your views from coming to your events?”

“I don’t,” Farage responded. “I can’t think, if I go back over the past 25 years, of banning anybody.”

That statement is contradicted by Reform’s decision to ban DeSmog and the New World from this year’s conference.

Byline Times also announced today that it has been banned from attending this year’s Conservative Party conference. DeSmog and a number of other independent outlets were banned from last year’s Tory conference.

Reform Conference 2025

As reported by DeSmog yesterday, Reform’s conference in Birmingham will feature climate science deniers, anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists, and dark money campaign groups.

They include the Heartland Institute, a group close to Donald Trump’s administration that has called human-induced climate change a “delusion”, and Net Zero Watch – the campaign arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, which has claimed that carbon dioxide has been “mercilessly demonised”.

By giving them a platform, Reform is “showing open contempt for the British public already living with the realities of climate breakdown,” said Tessa Khan, executive director of the research and campaign group Uplift.

A recent report by the New Economics Foundation found that Reform’s climate policies – which include scrapping clean energy investment and drilling for more fossil fuels – would cost more than 60,000 jobs and wipe £92 billion off the UK economy.

DeSmog previously revealed that Reform is offering access to Farage during the conference in exchange for hefty donations. A sum of £250,000 buys 10 seats at a champagne breakfast with the Reform leader during the two-day event, as well as “chauffeur-driven travel”, a personal assistant, and the sponsor’s logo on the main conference stage and battle bus.

DeSmog asked Reform to explain why it had been banned from the event, but did not receive a response.