After skipping Parliament’s return from recess this week, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has flown back from Washington DC to kick off his party’s annual conference today in Birmingham.

DeSmog has been banned from the event, which will be packed full of climate science deniers, anti-vaccine activists, and dark money lobby groups.

One agenda item at the conference will be for Farage to introduce his new party board members, three of whom were elected by members, and three of whom were hand-picked by the leader. Although Farage has ultimate control of the party, the board is tasked with advising on policies, overseeing party discipline, and managing its funds.

DeSmog has catalogued their views on climate change and found they are cut from the same cloth as Farage, who has claimed it’s “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant.

Andrea Jenkyns – selected by Farage

“Do I believe that climate change exists? No,” said Dame Andrea Jenkyns in an interview with Sky News in July.

Jenkyns is a former Conservative minister who was elected as Reform’s Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire in May and now sits on the party’s board.

This was the latest in a string of climate science denial remarks by Jenkyns. In September 2023, she claimed that “carbon dioxide is not pollution”, and that CO2 “is only one of many factors that might have an impact on the climate”. 

In May 2023, Jenkyns joined the board of Net Zero Watch, the campaign arm of the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF), a climate science denial group that has suggested CO2 emissions are “not pollution” and instead could be a “benefit to the planet”. She stepped down in May 2025 ahead of the local elections.

Jenkyns has also attacked the UK’s 2050 net zero emissions target, which was passed into law by her former party. In a speech at Reform’s East Midlands conference in January, Jenkyns claimed that Labour was “bankrupting Britain” with its “net zero madness”.

Scientists at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s foremost climate science body, have said: “it is unequivocal and indisputable that humans are warming the planet”.

The IPCC has also stated that carbon dioxide pollution “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” – all of which “will put a disproportionate burden on low-income households and thus increase poverty levels.”

Zia Yusuf – selected by Farage

Multi-millionaire former banker and tech entrepreneur Zia Yusuf became Reform’s chairman in July 2024 after donating £200,000 to the party.

Yusuf made his fortune via his company Velocity Black, a digital concierge service for the super-rich that he sold for £233 million in 2023.

Yusuf resigned as chair in June only to return as head of Reform’s ‘department of government efficiency’ (DOGE) initiative, the Elon Musk-inspired attempt to slash local authority budgets, with the stated aim of scrapping climate policies.

In the month following the local elections, Reform councils scrapped the flooding committee in Lincolnshire, which has seen hundreds of homes flooded during storms in recent years, and claimed to have banned Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs), despite there not being any in the areas they govern.

Yusuf has called North Sea oil and gas “a gift from god”, and has said net zero is “religious madness” and a “catastrophic act of self-harm”.

Paul Nuttall – selected by Farage

Paul Nuttall – like Farage – is a former leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP).

Under Nuttall, UKIP’s 2017 election manifesto vowed to “repeal the 2008 Climate Change Act”, “withdraw from the Paris climate agreement”, and “invest in shale gas exploration”.

In posts on his website, Nuttall has reportedly called himself “a sceptic in regard to climate change”. He has said he “sympathises” with the argument that “global warming is a money-led scam”, adding: “Figures used to ‘support’ the idea of climate change have been shown to be false and manipulated to meet a pre-made conclusion in order to secure funding.”

In 2022, Nuttall wrote an article for Russian-state propaganda outlet RT attacking net zero targets and the COP26 climate summit. The piece featured an interview with climate science denier Christopher Monckton — who has called global warming “bullshit” — and publicised an event with the latter held by the GWPF. Nuttall concluded the piece by defending Monckon as an “important voice” in the climate “debate”. 

Darren Grimes – elected by members

Darren Grimes is a former host on the anti-climate broadcaster GB News – Nigel Farage’s principal employer – who led BeLeave, a pro-Brexit campaign aimed at young people. He was elected as a Reform councillor for Durham County Council in May.

Grimes has frequently attacked the UK’s climate targets. On GB News in July 2022, he claimed net zero is “an asphyxiating straitjacket bound around the body of Britain” and is part of a conspiracy of “technocrats” trying to “immiserate those much poorer than them”.

In January he called net zero “economic suicide” and “batshit insanity”.

In July, Grimes hailed Durham Council’s vote to reverse its declaration of a climate emergency, saying: “We are done with expensive virtue-signalling tripe, and care about our residents.”

Dan Barker – elected by members

Former Conservative Greater Manchester mayoral candidate Dan Barker, who defected to Reform in March 2024, cited the party’s pledge to “scrap net zero” as one of his reasons. He stood for the same mayoral post on the Reform ticket in May 2025.

Last month, Barker shared a Daily Mail article by Reform deputy leader Richard Tice claiming that “ditching” net zero could “save every family £1,000 a year”.

Tice has himself claimed: “CO2 isn’t poison; it’s plant food”.

In July 2024, Barker attacked the Labour government for withdrawing support for a new coal mine in Cumbria.

In a post on Elon Musk’s X, Barker said: “More jobs & business sacrificed on the altar of net zero as Labour Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner pulls the rug out from under Britain’s only new coal mine in 30 years, kow-towing to activist groups and minority interests.”

Gawain Towler – elected by members

Towler is a long-time communications chief for Farage’s political parties, sacked from his position in Reform last year.

In an article in March, Towler argued that Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch had not gone far enough in breaking with the party’s past support for net zero.

He called net zero “economic seppuku” — a Japanese word for ritual suicide by disembowelment. Towler went on to claim that, due to emissions from other countries like China, “Even if we hit net zero tomorrow, shut every factory and banned farting cows, the planet wouldn’t notice.” 

On BBC Newsnight in May, Towler claimed that “the cost of net zero” was “causing huge problems with the cost of living” and “exporting jobs and importing virtue”, adding that “it does no good for the country”.

According to the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), the UK’s net zero economy grew by 10 percent in 2024, employing almost a million people in full-time jobs with an average wage of £43,000 – £5,600 higher than the national average. Meanwhile, the New Economics Foundation has estimated that Reform’s climate policies would cost more than 60,000 jobs and wipe £92 billion off the UK economy.

In an interview with The Spectator magazine in October, Towler suggested that “some climate scientists” find conclusions that support climate action because “if they don’t keep on saying it they won’t get the money”.