Nigel Farage has been accused of “toadying up to Donald Trump” for speaking at more than a dozen events linked to the U.S. president in the past two years.

The Reform UK leader – who won a by-election in Clacton last week against joke candidate Count Binface – has faced criticism for appearing to prefer Trump’s America to his constituency in Clacton.

DeSmog’s analysis finds that Farage has been given a platform by the Heartland Institute, a U.S. climate denial group; the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), including the launch of its UK branch last month; the National Conservatism (NatCon) conference, speaking alongside senior Trump official Russell Vought; and the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC), which is funded by Trump donors.

Farage also spoke at the Club for Growth, an anti-tax lobby group which raised $163 million (£120 million) for Republican candidates in 2024, at the New York Young Republicans Club, and the July 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

A long-standing ally of the president, Farage spoke at a Trump campaign rally in November 2024, attended events celebrating his inauguration in January 2025, and has held meetings with senior administration figures at the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

Farage was dubbed “MP for Washington” after DeSmog revealed that he had used a quarter of his speeches in Parliament to boost Trump’s attacks on UK government policies. In the same period, since the July 2024 general election, he has mentioned his Clacton constituency by name in the House of Commons on just six occasions.

“Farage’s sycophantic attendance at MAGA events is just yet more proof that he’s willing to put aside the UK’s national interest to toady up to Trump, a man who has done huge damage to the UK’s economy and caused skyrocketing cost of living for British people with his illegal Iran war and trade tariffs,” said Cary Mitchell, Executive Director of Strategy at Best for Britain, which campaigns to keep the radical right out of power.

“Brits have been extremely clear: far from savouring Donald Trump’s divisive brand of radical-right politics, which our polling shows has led to the collapse of British trust in the U.S., they take an overwhelmingly negative view.”

Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and a “con job”, while his accomplice Farage has claimed it’s “nuts” for carbon dioxide to be considered a pollutant.

The Trump administration has also tried to intervene in elections in Poland, Hungary, Germany, including through visits to those countries from senior allies Kristi Noem, JD Vance, and Elon Musk. In each case, they supported the local far-right party (Law and Justice, Fidesz, and Alternative for Deutschland).

Trump’s State Department is also offering grants of up to $3 million to European charities, think tanks, and individuals that share its values, and is reportedly giving $12 million to UK pro-MAGA groups.

There is no suggestion that Farage or Reform have received direct funding from the Trump administration. However, as revealed by DeSmog, the party’s largest donor, Christopher Harborne, shares financial ties with Trump’s Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.

Farage has returned to the House of Commons after winning last week’s Clacton by-election and is facing an investigation by Parliament’s standards commissioner into a £5 million undeclared gift he received from Harborne prior to the 2024 general election.

The investigation will assess whether Farage was in politics at the time of the gift and therefore should have registered it when he first became an MP in July 2024. Farage has said he has “no case to answer” and that he’s the victim of an “establishment hit job”.

Harborne has given more than £25 million to Reform since its creation in 2019 – the majority of the party’s funds. Reform has also been heavily funded by fossil fuel interests, aristocrats, and those linked to offshore tax havens. 

Farage’s speeches at Trump-linked events since being elected to Parliament

July 2024 – Republican National Convention (Milwaukee, U.S.)
August 2024 – Arizona Liberty Network (Arizona, U.S.)
September 2024 – Heartland Institute fundraiser (Chicago, U.S.)
November 2024 – Trump campaign rally (Pennsylvania, U.S.)
December 2024 – Heartland UK-EU launch (London, UK)
December 2024 – New York Young Republicans Club (New York, U.S.)
February 2025 – Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (London, UK)
February 2025 – CPAC (Washington, DC, U.S.)
June 2025 – Heartland Institute energy panel (London, UK)
September 2025 – National Conservatism conference (Washington, DC, U.S.)
October 2025 – Hillsdale College (Michigan, U.S.)
March 2026 – Club for Growth (Washington, DC, U.S.)
June 2026 – Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (London, UK)
July 2026 – CPAC Great Britain (London, UK)
July 2026 – “Redcoats and Rebels” Independence Day (Washington, DC, U.S.)

Non-speaking visits:

December 2024 – Mar-a-Lago meeting (Florida, U.S.)
January 2025 – Trump presidential inauguration (Washington, DC, U.S.)
March 2026 – Mar-a-Lago meeting (Florida, U.S.)

Project 2025 Ties

Several of the groups that Farage has addressed were contributors to Project 2025, the radical right-wing blueprint for Trump’s second term.

They include the Heartland Institute, which featured Farage as a keynote speaker at its 40th anniversary fundraiser in Chicago in September 2024.

Farage also helped to launch a UK-EU branch of the group later that year, and addressed an energy policy event hosted by Heartland in Westminster in June 2025. The group also ran a panel at Reform’s 2025 annual conference and claims to advise the party on its climate policies.

Farage spoke at NatCon’s Washington, DC conference in September 2025 alongside Vought – one of the key architects of Project 2025, who now leads the Trump administration’s efforts to slash state spending. As DeSmog reported, more than a fifth of the speakers at NatCon Washington had roles at groups which contributed to Project 2025.

A series of Trump-linked events have also come to the UK in recent months – hosting Farage as their star speaker. Last month, he headlined CPAC Great Britain, a UK franchise of the conservative gala held annually in the United States.

During the speech, he claimed: “I’ve spoken at over 10 CPACs in America”, and hailed what he called a “political revolution” there under Trump, saying he would seek to emulate the president’s policies in the UK.

Farage also spoke at the 2025 and 2026 ARC conferences, where he repeated MAGA narratives about the importance of defending “Judeo-Christian civilisation” and drilling for more fossil fuels.

Farage is far from the only Reform figure to have been spoken at pro-Trump events. Its head of policy James Orr, treasurer Nick Candy, MPs Danny Kruger and Suella Braverman, home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf, and parliamentary candidate Matthew Goodwin have all been given a platform by MAGA groups in recent years.

Orr, Kruger, and Goodwin have spoken at ARC conferences, while Orr is the UK chairman of the Washington, DC-based think tank the Edmund Burke Foundation, which helps to run NatCon events.

Yusuf, who used to be the party’s chairman and head of policy, has also been cosying up to the Heritage Foundation – the group that convened Project 2025. Yusuf, who has donated over £200,000 to Reform, spoke at a Heritage Foundation event in June. He used his speech to attack immigrants, warning of an “invasion” of “men of military age” arriving in the UK by small boats, and promising Trump-style “mass deportations” if Reform wins the next election.

The Heritage Foundation gathered allies in Washington, DC last March to discuss how to dismantle the current structures of the European Union. And, according to The Spectator, key figures behind Project 2025 have been “shuttling between London and Washington” to advise Farage.

Trump’s Republican Party faces a bruising “midterm” election in November, with Democrats ahead in almost every poll, and the president’s approval at 37 percent, a historic low.