The ties between Nigel Farage’s Reform UK and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been described as “extensive and troubling” in a new report.

The analysis by FairSquare, a non-profit which researches and campaigns on human rights, warns that the financial and political alliance between Reform and the authoritarian Gulf petrostate should be the subject of an “immediate and thorough investigation”.

“There is no evidence to suggest the UAE is funding Reform, but a large body of evidence would suggest that Reform UK is already an asset that the UAE has used to advance its agenda in a multitude of ways,” the report states.

It comes after two senior Reform advisors, James Orr and Dan Jukes, were sacked after seemingly attempting to solicit a £500,000 donation for the party from an undercover journalist posing as the son of a U.S. businessman. The Metropolitan Police has launched an investigation into whether the party tried to accept impermissible foreign donations. Orr, Jukes, and Reform deny wrongdoing.

Farage is also being investigated by Parliament’s standards commissioner for accepting but not declaring a £5 million “gift” from Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, who is Reform’s biggest donor. Harborne and fellow crypto billionaire Ben Delo recently announced that they would each be donating £36 million to Reform, thought the legality of those donations is unclear.

FairSquare states that Farage has been “granted remarkable access to the UAE’s political elite”. As DeSmog has reported, Reform has been forging ties with the UAE – including paid trips to the country, meetings with ministers, and senior party figures going into business with state-owned companies.

Farage and his top team have also repeatedly praised the UAE in the media as an investment hub with supposedly low levels of crime.

The UAE’s “violent authoritarianism has not proven any barrier to the forging of a strong and burgeoning relationship with Reform, whose most senior figures have effusively praised the UAE’s governance model, defended it from criticism, and advanced its political agenda in the UK,” the report states.

In the UAE, there are no political parties, critics of the government are often jailed, women face unequal treatment, migrant workers experience “widespread abuses” and its penal code allows for the arrest of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) campaigners.

Extensively referencing DeSmog’s prior reporting, the document calls for the UK’s Defending Democracy Taskforce to investigate Reform’s ties with the UAE. It also calls for the Gulf state to be added to the Enhanced Tier of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, which requires individuals and organisations to log if their activities in the UK are carried out at the instruction of a foreign power.

The Enhanced Tier currently only includes Russia and Iran.

There has been growing concern over foreign influence in British politics after Reform’s former leader in Wales, Nathan Gill, was jailed in November for taking bribes from Russian agents.

The Labour government has introduced a £100,000 annual cap on donations to political parties from British citizens living overseas, though Labour MPs are calling on the government to go further by introducing a limit on all donations.

The UAE has been building ties with radical political parties and figures, including far-right activist Tommy Robinson, France’s National Rally, and misogynist influencer Andrew Tate. The UAE has also forged an alliance with President Donald Trump, promising $1.4 trillion of investment in the U.S. and donating to his ‘Board of Peace’.

The report also notes the UAE’s violent repression of dissent at home and support for authoritarian figures abroad, including General al-Sissi in Egypt, warlord Khalifa Haftar in Libya, Tunisian president Kais Saied, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan, which has been accused of genocide by the United Nations.

Timeline – Reform’s relationship with the UAE

October 2024 – Reform treasurer and donor Nick Candy’s company Candy Capital enters “strategic joint venture partnership” with Modon Holding, chaired by Jassem Mohammed Bu Ataba Al Zaabi, a board member of ADNOC, UAE’s state oil company.

December 2024 – GB News co-owner Paul Marshall’s hedge fund Marshall Wace opens a UAE office. Fellow GB News co-owner, Legatum Group, is already based in UAE.

January 2025 – Isabel Oakshott, pro-Reform commentator and partner of Reform deputy leader Richard Tice, moves to Dubai. Tice visits regularly.

May 2025 – Former Tory chancellor Nadhim Zahawi becomes chairman of Omniyat, a Dubai property developer. Zahawi defects to Reform in January 2026.

September 2025 – Farage says a Reform government would proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood, which the UAE views as a threat to its political stability and ruling governance model.

December 2025 – Abu Dhabi pays £10,000 for Farage to the Formula 1 Grand Prix in the city.

January 2026 – Farage gives keynote speech at GB News anniversary party in UAE attended by ministers Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber and Reem Al Hashimy. Also present are Reform’s Laila Cunningham and Nadhim Zahawi. On the same trip, Farage interviews Reem Al Hashimy for GB News.

March 2026 – Richard Tice visits Dubai to “show solidarity” with UAE and calls on UK to join U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.

May 2026 – Farage meets UAE minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in London.

Mutual Objectives

The report identifies two key areas where the UAE’s interests converge with far-right parties in the U.S. and Europe: fossil fuels and anti-Muslim sentiment.

“The phasing out of fossil fuels … poses an existential threat” to the UAE’s autocratic rule, the report says – highlighting that 90 percent of UAE government revenue comes from the oil and gas industry.

Reform has promised to turbocharge fossil fuel extraction in the UK and to scrap public subsidies for clean energy projects. Its senior figures also frequently cast doubt on the science of man-made climate change.

The UAE’s other big concern is the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement active across the Middle East and North Africa which seeks to replace current regimes with theocracies. The UAE has lobbied for the group to be banned in Western countries.

In September 2025, Farage vowed to ban the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK if elected into government, and other Reform figures have criticised the group.

Despite Reform’s anti-immigration policies, and its senior figures often lamenting the presence of Muslims in Britain, an “unlikely alliance” has been forged between the party and the UAE – a state that bans criticism of Islam and enforces Sharia law.

This alliance has been sustained by the fact that “the UAE fears any form of organised Muslim politics or even political parties that receive significant Muslim support,” the report states. As a result, it has forged alliances with “parties of the far-right”, which share its “antipathy towards political organisations associated with Islam.”

The report adds: “In Reform UK, the UAE has found an ally willing to not only ban the Muslim Brotherhood, but to publicly vilify the group and repeat the UAE’s unsubstantiated claims about political Islam’s infiltration into various parts of British society, a narrative that aligns with the Islamophobia and anti-immigration sentiments that underpin Reform’s populist politics.”