James Orr, until recently a relatively obscure academic theologian, now ranks among Reform UK’s most influential politicians, having been appointed as the party’s head of policy in February, following a four-month stint as a senior advisor to leader Nigel Farage.
 
Orr’s friendship with U.S. Vice President JD Vance is widely known. However, there are many details about Orr’s views and political affiliations that haven’t received much scrutiny.

He shared a stage with a white nationalist

As revealed by DeSmog and The Mirror, Orr spoke in March 2026 at CPAC Hungary, a political conference closely associated with Donald Trump’s MAGA movement and co-organised by groups funded by Viktor Orbán’s autocratic Hungarian government.

Orr shared a stage with Martin Helme, leader of the far-right Estonian Conservative People’s Party, who has expressed white nationalist views about immigration.

In 2013, Helme said that his immigration policy was: “If you’re black, go back,” adding, “I want Estonia to be a white country”.

Asked by DW in 2019 if he had changed his views, Helme said: “No, no,” adding that he made those comments as a “talking head [on] a commentator show… You’re expected to say things in a more upfront way.”

Helme also made a “white power” gesture at his swearing-in ceremony as Estonia’s finance minister in 2019, a role he held until 2021.

At CPAC Hungary, Orr stated that Reform’s immigration policy is: “Not only do we have to stop mass migration, we have to start thinking about how we reverse it.”

Reform has pledged to deport all “illegal” migrants, and to restrict the rights of those who have legally settled in the UK by preventing them from remaining in the country indefinitely.

Read DeSmog’s profile of James Orr.

He loves Orbán’s Hungary

Orr has claimed that Orbán’s autocratic government serves as a “counterexample to the ideology in my own country that rejects national pride and heritage.”

He made this remark at the 2025 summer festival hosted by Mathias Corvinus Collegium (MCC), a think tank bankrolled by and closely associated with Orbán’s government.

Orr’s appearance was not his first encounter with MCC. Since 2021, he has been a director at the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation (RSLF), a UK right-wing think tank that has received more than £500,000 – over 90 percent of its funding – from MCC over the past decade.

Orbán’s government funded MCC via endowment worth over €1 billion in 2020, including a 10 percent stake in the Hungarian national oil company MOL, which has made a significant share of its revenues in recent years from trading Russian fossil fuels.

He’s mates with Peter Thiel

Tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel – an influential figure in radical right-wing political networks – was among the other speakers at MCC’s 2025 summer festival, interviewed on stage by Orr.

The pair appear to be close. Early in 2026, Orr hosted Thiel for a series of Cambridge talks entitled “The Antichrist Lectures”.

Posting about the lectures on Elon Musk’s social media platform X, Orr said: “What a privilege to host Peter Thiel in Cambridge this week for a stunningly original and erudite series of lectures.

“Thiel is a walking antidote to the modern multiversity.

“The highlight of our academic year.”

Cambridge’s Faculty of Divinity, to which Orr belongs, attracted criticism in 2021 for organising talks from radical right-wing figures including Thiel – some of which were organised by Orr.

He wants a UK ICE

Speaking at Reform’s annual conference in September 2025, Orr advised the party to form a UK equivalent of the United States’ Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

Since Trump returned to the White House in 2025, ICE has engaged in the harassment, kidnapping and killing of U.S. residents and citizens in the name of deporting “illegal” immigrants.

During his speech, Orr also called for the UK equivalent to Project 2025, the 900-page authoritarian policy blueprint for Trump’s second term, written by the Heritage Foundation.

He’s anti-climate

Orr has frequently attacked climate policies and the UK’s goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.

Speaking to the European Conservative in August 2025, he attacked European governments over their commitment to net zero, labelling it “fiscal suicide” and an example of “crazy energy policies.” He also suggested that if Reform UK were to win a general election, it “would end the economic catastrophe of net zero” which would “alone will give the country an enormous kick in terms of productivity.” 

In reality, the New Economics Foundation has estimated that Reform’s climate policies would wipe £92 billion off the economy and cost 60,000 jobs.

He headed a pro-Reform think tank modelled on the Heritage Foundation

In September 2025, Orr helped to formally launch the Centre for a Better Britain, a UK think tank designed to “support Reform with policy development, briefing and rebuttal”.

Leaked documents indicate the group seeks to raise £25 million by 2029 from UK and U.S. sources, including tech investors and pro-Trump donors.

The Centre for a Better Britain was co-founded by business interests in the energy and metals industries who reportedly worked with Nigel Farage in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Speaking to the BBC about the Centre for a Better Britain in July 2025, Orr heaped praise on the Heritage Foundation, claiming that British think tanks “struggle to keep the lights on”, whereas Heritage boss “Kevin Roberts has built up the … Heritage Foundation to the point where I think it’s getting about $100 million a year in income”.
 
 He went on to praise the group for formulating “an enormous policy shop window”, and helping to staff Trump’s “entire administration with hundreds and hundreds of bright young things”.

He called Russia’s war on Ukraine a “regional Slavic conflict”

In his European Conservative interview in August 2025, Orr minimised the importance of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – labelling it a “regional Slavic conflict” and adding that “it is a conflict happening in the world that I don’t care very much about.” 

Orr took a different line during his appearance at CPAC Hungary in March 2026, calling Putin’s invasion “scandalous” and saying that “in Britain we’re very proud that we welcomed 200,000 Ukrainian refugees.”