In Their Own Words: The Senior Reform and Tory Figures Who Have Lauded Trump

U.S. President Donald Trump suffered a spectacular setback in the country’s midterm elections this week, with Democrats taking control of Congress and the Republicans losing races in their traditional heartlands.

The election was a rebuke to Trump’s increasingly unpopular presidency. Voters expressed frustration with the cost of living and the economy, while the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran – which has driven up fuel prices – has proven to be a major political liability.

Trump’s political fortunes have also been damaged by his administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the agency at the centre of his mass deportation drive, has become a flashpoint and an emblem of Trump’s autocratic rule.

Yet, across the Atlantic, some of the UK’s most senior right-wing politicians have spent recent years enthusiastically praising Trump, celebrating his political leadership, and seeking to emulate his policies.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has repeatedly presented himself as one of Trump’s most enthusiastic international allies. At a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) event in February 2025, he declared that Trump is “the bravest man I know”.

Farage also described the president’s 2024 election victory as a source of inspiration for his own political ambitions. “This is all going to blow back and help us. We are now topping every opinion poll in Britain, and we are going to win the next general election,” he said.

With Reform falling in the polls and the party facing police and parliamentary investigations, that prospect now seems increasingly unlikely.

Meanwhile, Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has similarly celebrated Trump’s return to office and his second term agenda.

At the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) conference in February 2025, Badenoch referenced her party’s defeat at the 2024 general election and her subsequent election as Tory leader, saying: “People ask me what difference new leadership will make? Well, take a look at President Trump.”

She continued: “He’s showing that sometimes you need that first stint in government to spot the problems, but it’s the second time around when you really know how to fix them.”

And this enthusiasm has extended beyond rhetoric. Reform and Conservative politicians have embraced Trump’s calls for expanded fossil fuel extraction, praised his drive to slash the state, and proposed British versions of his immigration enforcement operation.

Meanwhile, as revealed by DeSmog, influential right-wing Westminster pressure groups have accepted $20 million from U.S. sources, including major Trump donors, over the past decade – while MPs have received more than £300,000 for attending Trump-aligned events since the 2024 UK general election.

‘Drill, Baby, Drill’

Few policy areas illustrate the ideological alignment between Trump and Britain’s right-wing parties more clearly than oil and gas.

Trump began his second presidency by demanding that Britain abandon restrictions on North Sea extraction. On 3 January 2025, he posted on Truth Social: “The UK is making a very big mistake. Open up the North Sea. Get rid of Windmills!”

And his administration has made expanding domestic fossil fuel production a central policy objective, encapsulated by the slogan “drill, baby, drill”.

The Conservatives and Reform have both echoed that mantra, arguing that Britain should maximise extraction from its dwindling North Sea reserves rather than pursue a transition away from fossil fuels.

In September 2025, Badenoch met Trump at the White House. Afterwards, she made clear that the North Sea had featured prominently in their discussions.

The Conservative leader wrote on the social media platform X: “Not surprised Trump was so emphatic. It’s all we spoke about last night. We have to get our oil and gas out of the North Sea.”

She added: “We have to make the most of our natural resources. It’s mad to leave billions of £ in there.”

The comments reflected Badenoch’s commitment to maximising fossil fuel extraction at the expense of the UK’s climate commitments – pledging to scrap the 2050 net zero emissions target that the Conservative Party introduced in office.

Reform has gone even further in adopting Trump’s pro-oil language.

Speaking at a fundraiser for the Heartland Institute – a U.S. climate science denial group – in September 2024, Farage urged the country to re-elect Trump so the Republican could enact his “drill, baby, drill” agenda.

Reform has pursued an anti-climate manifesto modelled on Trump’s policies – pledging to remove the ban on fracking for shale gas, open new coal plants, and scrap subsidies for renewable energy.

In summer 2025, Reform’s mayor of Greater Lincolnshire Andrea Jenkyns met representatives of oil and gas company Egdon Resources, owned by Texas-based Heyco Energy, and promised to echo the Trump administration’s approach to drilling.

“Donald [Trump] is wise,” she said. “We value our oil and gas industries and know that they are essential for Britain’s energy security and to fuel our homes.”

Jenkyns has been a vocal supporter of fracking, saying: “I want to turn the countryside into Swiss cheese and just go for it.” 

Egdon claims it has discovered huge deposits of natural gas in the Gainsborough Trough basin in Lincolnshire, which it would extract through fracking – a practice banned in the UK due to its environmental and health impacts.

As revealed by DeSmog, George Yates, who owns Egdon and Heyco, is a Trump donor.

Like Trump – who has called climate change the “greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” – Farage has frequently spread climate science denial. Speaking at the 2025 ARC conference, he claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for carbon dioxide to be considered a pollutant.

In fact, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s foremost climate science body, has stated that carbon dioxide “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”.

‘A British DOGE’

Trump’s drive to slash federal spending, overseen initially by Elon Musk through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been another major source of inspiration for Britain’s right.

The initiative was a central feature of Trump’s early second-term agenda, promising to reduce the size of the federal government. It also drew widespread controversy over mass redundancies, the accessing of private data, the dismantling of international aid programmes, and the extent of Musk’s unprecedented influence over the administration.

However, both Badenoch and Farage have explicitly endorsed the idea of importing DOGE to Britain.

In February 2025, Badenoch told The Telegraph’s Daily T podcast that Britain needed a similar scheme.

Asked whether the UK needed its own version of DOGE, she replied: “I think so” – adding: “If you remember in my campaign launch speech, I said that we need to reboot [and] rewire the state. This is what we have to do.”

Badenoch added: “We have to do something like DOGE … We have to have a revolution on this.”

Farage was equally enthusiastic. At Reform’s March 2025 local elections campaign launch, he told supporters: “Frankly folks, what we need in this country to pay for the cuts that people deserve and need, we need a British form of DOGE, as Elon Musk has got in America. Let’s have a British DOGE.”

Reform deputy leader Richard Tice called for: “a sort of county-by-county equivalent of a DOGE” at the same event, asking supporters: “Do you want to make Britain great again?”

And the party has attempted to implement this agenda in local government.

In June 2025, Reform announced the creation of a DOGE team intended to identify and cut spending in its local councils.

The initiative was presented as a direct counterpart to Musk’s American project. Reform’s then-chair, Zia Yusuf, said: “For too long British people have been British taxpayers have watched their money vanish into a black hole.”

He continued: “As promised, we have created a UK DOGE to identify and cut wasteful spending of taxpayer money. Our team will use cutting-edge technology and deliver real value for voters.”

Yusuf also lauded Musk – a far-right tech baron – as “the ideal person” to lead Trump’s DOGE agency.

Despite Reform’s strong language, its local DOGE operation hasn’t achieved dramatic “cost savings” for taxpayers. In February, Paul Chamberlain, a Reform cabinet member responsible for Kent Council’s DOGE agenda, told the Financial Times: “We made some assumptions that we would come in here and find some of the craziness that DOGE found in America and that was wrong, we didn’t find any of that.”

ICE and Mass Deportations

Immigration enforcement has been another area where British right-wing politicians have sought to emulate Trump.

In August 2025, Farage unveiled plans to detain and deport migrants who have entered Britain through irregular routes. Yusuf outlined the proposed system for implementing the policy, including a dedicated deportation force – modelled on ICE – and a data-sharing system connecting government agencies.

He said: “We will pair this legislative reset with a UK deportation command – that is a dedicated force to identifying, detaining and deporting illegal migrants at scale.”

Yusuf added: “We’ll create a cutting edge data fusion centre that will automatically share data between the police, the Home Office, the NHS, the DVLA, HMRC and banks.”

In September 2026, Farage even said he wanted to “hijack” Trump’s ICE advisor, Tom Homan, and bring him to Britain “to secure our borders”.

The Conservatives have also explicitly drawn on the U.S. model. In October 2025, Badenoch announced plans for a new ‘Removals Force’ modelled on ICE, with powers to identify, detain and deport people without legal immigration status.

The proposals included facial recognition and a requirement for police to check people against biometric border data.

When Badenoch was asked whether Trump would approve of the policy, she replied: “I wouldn’t be surprised if he loved it.”

The Iran War

The Iran war has proven to be politically disastrous for Trump and the Republican Party – a fact now acknowledged by U.S. Vice President JD Vance – but senior right-wing figures in the UK were quick to support the president’s military intervention.

Badenoch was among the most vocal Conservative supporters of the bombing campaign – saying in January 2026, amid protests against Iran’s government, that she would support American intervention if it took place “with a broad coalition of countries”.

Asked whether the U.S. and its allies should help remove the Iranian regime, Badenoch replied: “I think that given the threat that we’re seeing to the people, I think that would be right”.

She qualified her position by insisting that any intervention had to be judged against Britain’s national interest.

When Trump and Israel launched their attacks in February, Badenoch supported their actions and criticised Prime Minister Keir Starmer for refusing to join the initial offensive.

She argued that Britain should “do more than catch arrows” and “take out” Iranian missile launchers.

Explaining her position, she said: “When missiles are being fired, the launchers which are kept deep underground come out. If you take out the capacity, that means that they will stop sending missiles over. So don’t just catch the arrows. Stop the archer.”

Badenoch has subsequently denied that she had called for Britain to join the offensive strikes, claiming: “I said that we support their actions. I never said we should join.”

The calls for British intervention were particularly pronounced among Reform’s senior figures, including Tice and former Conservative chancellor Nadhim Zahawi, who defected to Reform in January 2026.

Zahawi told The Sun that Britain should participate in the U.S.-Israeli operation. “Whatever the U.S. needs we should make all of our assets available,” he said. “That means bases, hardware, logistics. We should join the bombing if needed.”

He subsequently told Times Radio that Britain should “make everything available to our greatest ally, the United States of America”.

Tice was similarly explicit. Appearing on Saudi broadcaster Al Arabiya in March, Farage’s deputy said that a Reform government: “would be helping the Americans and the Israelis in any way they saw appropriate” and would be “pleased to help” with offensive missions if asked.

Andrea Jenkyns went further, refusing to rule out British troops being deployed on the ground. Asked on Sky News whether she wanted to see British forces in Iran, she said: “Ideally not at this stage”, but added: “you can’t rule anything out. Look, it’s too hostile and we don’t know the direction it’s going in. But should we be using more of our weapons and should the [HMS] Dragon be there already? Most certainly.”

They were following Farage’s lead. On 28 February, the Reform leader tweeted: “The Prime Minister needs to change his mind on the use of our military bases and back the Americans in this vital fight against Iran!”

A few days later, he said the UK’s “inaction” in failing to join the war was “frankly pathetic”.

Gaza and Venezuela

Beyond Iran, senior figures on the British right have repeatedly applauded Trump’s willingness to remake the international order – even when his interventions have provoked widespread condemnation.

In February 2025, Farage welcomed Trump’s proposal to take control of Gaza and relocate its population.

He said: “I love that notion. The thought of a wealthy, wonderful thriving place with well-paid jobs, casinos, nightlife … it all sounds very appealing to me.”

Farage added: “I’m not here to answer for everything the Trump administration has to say.”

But he also praised Trump’s early presidency more broadly: “promises made, promises kept, quite extraordinary” he said – adding: “So without being specific on Gaza, I would just say I think he’s off the most incredible start.”

Farage also described Trump’s use of tariffs – some of which have been imposed on the UK – as a “transactional tool” which the president uses “amazingly effectively”. These tariffs are now blamed for creating high costs in working class areas of America that rely on manufacturing.

Meanwhile, Badenoch was also supportive of Trump’s intervention in Venezuela where, in January, the U.S. captured President Nicholás Maduro.

“Venezuela was a brutal regime,” Badenoch said – adding: “I think what’s happened is quite extraordinary. But I understand why America has done it.”

Asked whether the intervention was morally justified, Badenoch replied: “Morally, yes.”

The MAGA Model

The relationship between Trump and Britain’s right extends beyond individual endorsements of his policies, encompassing a wider network of political organisations, ideological allies, and campaign groups.

Few British political figures have embraced Trump’s project as enthusiastically as Liz Truss, who has reinvented herself as a MAGA evangelist since leaving Downing Street.

Truss was even spotted at Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago estate on the night of the midterm elections, giving her a front-row seat to the electoral hammering inflicted on the Republicans.

Yet Truss has championed the very policies that underpinned the disastrous results.

Speaking at CPAC in February 2025, the former prime minister declared: “We want a Trump revolution in Britain.” She called for Musk and his “nerd army of Muskrats” to examine the British “deep state”, and said the UK should participate in what she described as the “second American revolution”.

“We see President Trump in the executive, in the Oval Office signing off executive orders, and we want some of that in Britain,” Truss told the conference. “We want drill, baby, drill. We want men banned from women’s bathrooms and women’s sports. We want illegal immigrants deported. We want taxes to be cut. We want a Trump revolution in Britain.”

Truss has since become the chair of CPAC UK, bringing the pro-Trump jamboree to Britain. The event, hosted in July, was addressed by Farage – despite the Reform leader suggesting beforehand that he would be “steering well clear” of the summit. 

Andrew Griffith, the Conservative Party’s shadow chancellor, also addressed the event and has developed close ties to Trump’s MAGA network.

Meanwhile, Farage has helped to import an influential U.S. climate science denial group, the Heartland Institute, to the UK. The Reform leader was the keynote speaker at the launch of the Heartland Institute’s UK-EU branch in December 2024, months after urging the group to set up a satellite in Europe.

Heartland Institute UK-EU director Lois Perry claims to be advising the party on its climate agenda and is the strategy director of Reform Friends of Israel – a lobbying group within the party.

And Farage has been forging ties with Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) – a powerful legal advocacy group that led the campaign to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark ruling that protected the constitutional right to abortion in the United States.

ADF’s UK branch spent over £1.4 million on its activities in 2025, more than three times higher than in 2020. Farage has not only appeared on promotional materials put out by the ADF, but according to the New York Times the group orchestrated a visit by Reform’s leader to Washington DC in September 2025, during which he testified to Congress. 

ADF has also reportedly arranged backroom meetings between Farage and State Department officials on their visits to London.

“President Trump’s victory represents the rejection of open borders, socialist economics, woke ideology, net zero fanaticism and [diversity, equity, and inclusion schemes] by right thinking people in America,” Zia Yusuf posted after the president’s election victory in November 2024, adding: “The UK is next.”

Two years on, the American electorate is rejecting the Trump project. His increasingly unpopular presidency, and Reform’s own faltering fortunes, suggest the MAGA model may be losing its appeal on both sides of the Atlantic.