Reform UK leader Nigel Farage received freebies worth £10,000 from the Abu Dhabi government, new records show.
Farage’s latest register of interests shows that he accepted flights and accommodation to attend the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 Grand Prix in December, paid for by the regime that runs the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This included a front-row “paddock” pass to the event worth £4,500.
The records show that Farage also attended “meetings” during his visit.
The Reform leader has previously mocked Prime Minister Keir Starmer for receiving gifts from donors.
Reform campaigns for the UK to dramatically expand its fossil fuel production, scrap its clean energy policies, and dismantle its climate targets.
The UAE is an autocratic monarchy and petrostate. Roughly 30 percent of the country’s GDP is directly based on its oil and gas output.
Reform received 92 percent of its donations between the 2019 and 2024 UK elections from polluting sources and climate science deniers, while its treasurer Nick Candy has claimed the party is actively raising money from oil executives.
Senior party figures have also praised U.S. President Donald Trump’s “drill baby drill” agenda, which has seen his administration recently capture Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and pledge that the U.S. oil industry will “go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country”.
Farage denies basic climate science, claiming it’s “absolutely nuts” for carbon dioxide to be considered a pollutant. The party is being advised by the Heartland Institute, a U.S.-based pro-Trump climate denial group. Farage helped to launch Heartland’s UK-EU branch in December last year.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate science body, has said “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet.”
The IPCC has also stated that carbon dioxide pollution “is responsible for most of global warming” since the late 19th century, which has increased the “severity and frequency of weather and climate extremes, like heat waves, heavy rains, and drought” – all of which “put a disproportionate burden on low-income households and thus increase poverty levels.”
Key individuals in Reform have also heaped praise on the UAE in recent months.
Reform deputy leader Richard Tice has said he travels to the UAE “every six to eight weeks” to visit his partner, Telegraph columnist Isabel Oakeshott, who moved to Dubai in January 2025.
Tice has praised the UAE for its sense of national pride, work ethic, law and order, integration of migrants, and energy sector, while stating that the UK is “decadent” and “going bust”.
In an article last January for the website Arabian Gulf Business Insight, Candy praised the UAE’s crime prevention and “robust law enforcement”, adding: “Coupled with a high standard of living, excellent healthcare and top-tier schools, the UAE offers a lifestyle that few other locations can match.”
Candy also lauded “the wisdom and visionary nature of the UAE’s leadership”, writing that “the quality of government officials is mind-blowing”. By contrast, he said that Western countries are ruled by “second-tier individuals” who “allow political agendas to get in the way of what is best for the country”.
The UAE does not hold popular elections, and there are no political parties. Critics of the government are often jailed, while migrant workers face “widespread abuses” according to Human Rights Watch, including wage theft and passport confiscation.
The country also discriminates against women and its penal code allows the authorities to arrest people for campaigns promoting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
Reform was approached for comment.
