Reform UK leader Nigel Farage will speak next week alongside the authors of Donald Trump’s plans to “dismantle the administrative state” and scrap climate policies.
Farage is a featured speaker at the National Conservatism (NatCon) conference in Washington DC – at least his tenth visit to the U.S. since being elected as an MP.
As reported in The Mirror, Farage’s trip – during which he will also reportedly speak to Congress about free speech in the UK – means he will miss Parliament’s return from summer recess.
A version of this article was published by The Mirror
DeSmog’s analysis reveals that more than a fifth of the speakers at the NatCon event have roles at groups which contributed to Project 2025, the radical blueprint for Trump’s second term convened by the Heritage Foundation.
They include Russell Vought, Trump’s budget chief. Before entering office, Vought was a key author of Project 2025 and the vice president of Heritage Action, the campaign arm of the Heritage Foundation, whose president Kevin Roberts will be speaking at NatCon.
The listed speakers also include senior members of the Trump administration, including his Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who launched her book For Love of Country at a Heritage Foundation event with Roberts last year; and Tom Homan, Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who is a former visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a contributor to Project 2025.
NatCon is organised by the Edmund Burke Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington DC. Its UK chairman James Orr runs the pro-Reform think tank the Centre for a Better Britain, is a close friend of U.S. Vice President JD Vance, and recently told BBC Radio 4 that he admires the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025. Farage spoke at a NatCon event in Brussels last year.
The lengthy Project 2025 policy document, titled ‘The Mandate for Leadership’, proposed reversing climate policies, unleashing fossil fuel extraction, scrapping investment in clean energy, and gutting the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) – policies imposed by the Trump administration.
As DeSmog has reported, 70 percent of Trump’s cabinet has ties to Project 2025, which also seeks to “dismantle the administrative state”, further restrict abortion, and access to contraception.
A Liberal Democrat source told DeSmog: “Nigel Farage is far more interested in pleasing Trump and jostling for his affections than he is in turning up to Parliament on time or standing up for British values.”
Farage in DC
Farage will speak on a panel alongside Larry Arnn, who sits on the Heritage Foundation’s board of directors.
It will be the second time Farage has shared a stage with Arnn following a fundraiser in September 2024 for the Heartland Institute, which also contributed to Project 2025 and has described itself as “the world’s most prominent think tank supporting scepticism about man-made climate change”.
At the fundraiser, Farage claimed that the UK’s efforts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions don’t “make any bloody difference at all” – and reiterated Trump’s call to “drill baby drill” for fossil fuels.
Farage and Trump have both denied basic climate science. The Reform leader has claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant, while Trump has called climate change a “giant hoax”.
Next week’s event in Washington lists at least 22 speakers with current or recent roles at the Heritage Foundation and other Project 2025 member groups.
Other UK speakers at the event include Rupert Darwall, who has claimed there is “strong evidence for the non-existence of a climate crisis,” and former GB News presenter Calvin Robinson.
Senior members of the Conservative Party including shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick and shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel have met with Heritage Foundation leaders or spoken at their events in recent years.
Reform UK did not reply to DeSmog’s request for comment.
Project 2025 speakers at NatCon Washington DC
Kevin Roberts – president of the Heritage Foundation
Russell Vought – director of the Office for Budget Management, and former vice president of Heritage Action
Tom Homan – director of Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE), and a former visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation
Christopher DeMuth – Heritage Foundation Fellow
John Backiel – visiting fellow for the Capital Markets Initiative at the Heritage Foundation
Robert Greenway – director of the Allison Center for National Security at the Heritage Foundation
Rob Bluey – executive editor of the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal
Victoria Coates – vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy
Tom Klingenstein – chairman of the board of directors at the Claremont Institute
Spencer Klavan – associate editor at the Claremont Review of Books
Ryan Williams – president of the Claremont Institute and publisher of the Claremont Review of Books
John Eastman – senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, and a contributor to the Heritage Guide to the Constitution
Will Thibeau – director of the American Military Project at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life, and previously a policy analyst in the Heritage Foundation’s Tech Policy Center
Kristen Waggoner – CEO, president, and general counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom
Gene Hamilton – president and co-founder of America First Legal
Curt Mills — executive director of the American Conservative
Mark DiPlacido — policy advisor at American Compass, and a former Heritage Action staffer
Rachel Bovard — vice president of programs at the Conservative Partnership Institute
Rupert Darwall — strategy consultant and policy analyst at the Competitive Enterprise Institute
Mark Krikorian — executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies
Alex Petkas — a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America
Clare Morell — fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center
