Tory defector Suella Braverman speaks with Reform UK Leader Nigel Farage(Image: Getty Images)
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s latest high-profile recruit, Suella Braverman, had a trip paid for by The Heritage Foundation — a supporter of the controversial US immigration agency ICE
Reform defector Suella Braverman has been bankrolled by a think-tank backing the US immigration agency behind a deadly shooting.
The ex-Home Secretary became the latest high-profile Tory to join Nigel Farage‘s party this week. But we can reveal she accepted a freebie trip worth more than £9,000 from The Heritage Foundation — a supporter of controversial ICE in the wake of a mum being killed. In recent weeks, the award-winning poet’s death and that of an ICU nurse at the hands of another US agency have sparked outrage. In an interview on Tuesday, Donald Trump said his administration was “going to de-escalate a little bit” in Minnesota. “Bottom line, it was terrible. Both of them were terrible,” the US president said.
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Hope Not Hate’s Director of Research, Joe Mulhall, added: “Sadly, it is no surprise that Suella Braverman has accepted funds from the Heritage Foundation. Her own increasingly radical politics, which have seen her defect to Reform UK, align well with much of the output of this infamous US think-tank. Braverman was the Home Secretary who described asylum seekers arriving in the UK by boat as an ‘invasion’, adopting and normalising the language of the far right. She’s now in Reform, a party that has called for ‘mass deportations,’ a plan that if enacted would require something akin to a British version of ICE.”
Braverman, who represents Fareham and Waterlooville in Hampshire, accepted flights, accommodation and airport transfers valued at £9,358.71 from The Heritage Foundation in January last year, her register of interests shows. During the visit, she delivered the annual Margaret Thatcher Freedom Lecture. In a tweet promoting her speech, she echoed Trump’s rhetoric, writing: “Too many people are coming into our country who do not abide by our laws, sign up to our values or respect our culture. In fact, too many wish to do us harm. We have all had enough. It’s time to Make Britain Great Again.”
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Reform UK leader Nigel Farage at the Formula 1 Grand Prix in Abu Dhabi, December 2025. Credit: Nigel Farage / X
The leader of Reform, a pro-oil party, received lavish hospitality from Abu Dhabi.
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage received freebies worth £10,000 from the Abu Dhabi government, new records show.
Farage’s latest register of interests shows that he accepted flights and accommodation to attend the Abu Dhabi Formula 1 Grand Prix in December, paid for by the regime that runs the capital of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This included a front-row “paddock” pass to the event worth £4,500.
The records show that Farage also attended “meetings” during his visit.
The Reform leader has previously mocked Prime Minister Keir Starmer for receiving gifts from donors.
Reform campaigns for the UK to dramatically expand its fossil fuel production, scrap its clean energy policies, and dismantle its climate targets.
The UAE is an autocratic monarchy and petrostate. Roughly 30 percent of the country’s GDP is directly based on its oil and gas output.
Reform received 92 percent of its donations between the 2019 and 2024 UK elections from polluting sources and climate science deniers, while its treasurer Nick Candy has claimed the party is actively raising money from oil executives.
Senior party figures have also praised U.S. President Donald Trump’s “drill baby drill” agenda, which has seen his administration recently capture Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and pledge that the U.S. oil industry will “go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country”.
Farage denies basic climate science, claiming it’s “absolutely nuts” for carbon dioxide to be considered a pollutant. The party is being advised by the Heartland Institute, a U.S.-based pro-Trump climate denial group. Farage helped to launch Heartland’s UK-EU branch in December last year.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s leading climate science body, has said “it is a statement of fact, we cannot be any more certain; 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 “put a disproportionate burden on low-income households and thus increase poverty levels.”
Key individuals in Reform have also heaped praise on the UAE in recent months.
Reform deputy leader Richard Tice has said he travels to the UAE “every six to eight weeks” to visit his partner, Telegraph columnist Isabel Oakeshott, who moved to Dubai in January 2025.
Tice has praised the UAE for its sense of national pride, work ethic, law and order, integration of migrants, and energy sector, while stating that the UK is “decadent” and “going bust”.
In an article last January for the website Arabian Gulf Business Insight, Candy praised the UAE’s crime prevention and “robust law enforcement”, adding: “Coupled with a high standard of living, excellent healthcare and top-tier schools, the UAE offers a lifestyle that few other locations can match.”
Candy also lauded “the wisdom and visionary nature of the UAE’s leadership”, writing that “the quality of government officials is mind-blowing”. By contrast, he said that Western countries are ruled by “second-tier individuals” who “allow political agendas to get in the way of what is best for the country”.
The UAE does not hold popular elections, and there are no political parties. Critics of the government are often jailed, while migrant workers face “widespread abuses” according to Human Rights Watch, including wage theft and passport confiscation.
The country also discriminates against women and its penal code allows the authorities to arrest people for campaigns promoting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.
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An FBI Confidential Human Source (CHS) is an individual, often involved in criminal activity, who is vetted by the FBI to provide information, intelligence, or evidence regarding criminal or national security investigations. Formerly referred to as informants, CHSs are crucial for investigating,, and sometimes used to monitor, suspects in criminal or intelligence cases.
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“Exceptionally heavy” rainfall that led to deadly flooding across southern Africa in recent weeks was made more intense by a combination of climate change and La Niña.
From late December 2025 to early January, south-eastern Africa was hit hard by intense downpours that resulted in more than a year’s worth of rain falling in some areas in just a few days, according to the study.
The analysis finds that periods of intense rainfall over southern Africa have become 40% more severe since pre-industrial times, according to observations.
The authors say they were unable to calculate how much of this increase was driven specifically by climate change, due to limitations in how climate models simulate African rainfall.
However, the study notes that the researchers “have confidence that climate change has increased both the likelihood and the intensity” of the rainfall.
The authors also note that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation phenomenon played a role in the “devastating” flooding, estimating that a La Niña event made the rainfall around five times more likely.
Major disruption
The heavy rainfall started on 26 December last year and intensified from early January. The most-extreme rainfall took place between 10 and 19 January.
The countries most affected by the floods, and analysed by the study, are Eswatini, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, with some areas receiving up to 200mm of rain, according to the study authors.
The map below shows the areas most affected by intense rainfall over 10-19 January. Darker blue indicates a greater accumulation of rainfall, while light green indicates less rainfall. The pink box shows the study area.
Most affected areas by large floods in southern Africa. Darker blue indicates a greater accumulation of rainfall, while light green indicates less rainfall. The pink box shows the study area. Source: WWA (2026).
In Mozambique, the floods damaged nearly 5,000km of roads, which has hindered the transport of goods and affected pharmaceutical supply chains, the study says. In Zimbabwe, bridges, roads and infrastructure were “significantly damaged or destroyed”.
More than 75,000 people have been affected by the floods in Mozambique, according to the study. BBC News reported the floods were the worst seen “in a generation” in the country.
Dr Izidine Pinto, a climate scientist from Mozambique currently working at the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, told a press briefing that the country was particularly affected because it “lies downstream of major river basins”.
The flooding prompted Mozambique’s education minister to consider rescheduling the start of the academic year, according to Channel Africa.
In South Africa, the country’s weather service said that areas receiving more than 50mm of rain over 11-13 January were “widespread”, with some places seeing up to 200mm.
South Africa’s Kruger National Park – the largest national park in South Africa – was severely damaged by floods and temporarily closed after several rivers burst their banks, reported TimesLIVE.
The South African news outlet quoted environment minister Willie Aucamp as saying: “The indication is that it will take as long as five years to repair all the bridges and roads and other infrastructure.”
Extreme rainfall
The peak of the rainy season in southern Africa falls between December and February.
To put the extreme rainfall into its historical context and determine how unlikely it was, the authors analysed a timeseries of 10-day maximum rainfall data for the December-February season.
They find that in today’s climate, extreme rainfall events of the scale seen this year in southern Africa would be expected only once every 50 years.
They add that such events have become “significantly more intense”, with observational data showing a 40% increase in rainfall severity since pre-industrial times.
The map below shows accumulated rainfall over Eswatini, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe over 10-19 January, as a percentage of the average December-February rainfall for the region over 1991-2020.
Green shading indicates that the rainfall in 2026 was higher than in 1991-2020, while brown indicates that it was lower. The red box indicates the study region.
Accumulated rainfall over Eswatini, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe over 10-19 January 2026, shown as a percentage of the average December-February rainfall for the region over 1991-2020. The study region is outlined in dark red. Source: WWA (2026).
The study explains that in January and February, rainfall patterns in southern Africa are “strongly influenced” by the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), a naturally occurring climate phenomenon that affects global temperatures and regional weather patterns.
La Niña is the “cool” phase of ENSO, which typically brings wetter weather to southern Africa.
Pinto told the press briefing that “most past extreme rainfall events [in the region] have occurred during La Niña years”.
The authors estimate that the current weak La Niña event made the extreme rainfall five times more likely and increased the intensity of the event by around 22%.
For attribution studies, which identify the “fingerprint” of human-caused climate change on extreme weather events, scientists typically use climate models to simulate and compare worlds with and without global warming.
However, many models have limitations in their simulations of African rainfall. In this study, the authors found that the models available to them cannot “adequately capture” the influence of ENSO on rainfall in the region.
Study author Prof Fredi Otto, a professor in climate science at the Imperial College London, told a press briefing that these limitations are “well known”. They stem, in part, because the models were “developed outside of Africa” by modellers with different priorities, she explained.
This means that the authors were unable to calculate how much more intense or likely the rainfall event was specifically as a result of human-caused warming.
However, Otto explained that the authors are “very, very confident that climate change did increase the likelihood and intensity of the rainfall” to some extent. This is because the observations all show an increase in rainfall over time and other existing literature supports this assumption, she added.
She told the press briefing that the results of this study were “definitely not 100% satisfactory”, adding that this study will “definitely not be the last of its kind in this region”.
(These findings are yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal. However, the methods used in the analysis have been published in previous attribution studies.)
Vulnerability
The study warns that the flooding “exposed deep and persistent social vulnerability in the region”.
The authors say that a large proportion of the population – especially in urban areas – live in poor housing with “inadequate planning and insufficient provision of basic services”.
Paola Emerson, head of office at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Mozambique, told a UN press briefing about the flooding that nearly 90% of people in the country live in traditional adobe houses that “basically melt after a few days’ rains”.
In a WWA press release, study author Nhantumbo explained:
“When 90% of homes are made of sun-dried earth, they simply cannot withstand this much rain. The structural collapse of entire villages is a stark reminder that our communities and infrastructure are now being tested by weather they are just not designed to endure.”
Study author Renate Meyer – an adviser with the conflict and climate team at the Red Cross Red Crescent Centre – said in a WWA press briefing that the “recurring frequency of hazards such as drought and extreme rainfall have had a significant impact on communities experiencing, amongst others, displacement, health challenges, socioeconomic loss and psychological distress”.
For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a press release that the event had disrupted access to health services and increased the risks of water- and mosquito-borne diseases, as well as respiratory infections across southern Africa.
Meyer explained that the countries included in this study have “substantial populations living below or near the poverty line with limited savings, low insurance cover and a high dependence on climate sensitive livelihoods”.
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Suella Braverman’s decision to defect to Reform UK is not just another blow to Kemi Badenoch’s attempt to stabilise the Conservatives after their 2024 defeat. It also changes what Reform is being judged on.
Earlier this month, Badenoch sacked Robert Jenrick from the shadow cabinet for plotting to defect to Reform. Hours later, he did just that. Braverman’s move takes Reform’s number of MPs to eight. Party leader Nigel Farage has said Reform had been in talks with her for a year.
At this point, though, Reform is at risk of absorbing so many former Tories that it starts to look like the establishment it denounces. This recruitment spree rewrites the insurgent brand.
Reform’s leadership will understandably celebrate Braverman’s arrival as a serious coup. She is a former home secretary and a national media figure. Her departure is an unmistakable signal that the Conservative right is fragmenting. The Times reports she told supporters it felt like she had “come home”, but there is a basic strategic tension here.
Reform has thrived by arguing that British politics is run by a closed circle of insiders who fail repeatedly and then reshuffle into new jobs. A rapid intake of ex-ministers risks making Reform look less like a clean break and more like a migration route for political careers.
That attack line is already being deployed. After former chancellor Nadhim Zahawi’s switch earlier this month, the Liberal Democrats described Reform as “a retirement home for disgraced former Conservative ministers”. The same basic charge has followed Braverman’s move: critics argue that people who helped shape the recent Conservative record are now trying to rebrand themselves inside Reform rather than account for that record.
For Reform, then, the immediate gain in publicity comes with a reputational cost: the party becomes easier to frame as a collection of defectors rather than a coherent alternative.
The May deadline: Reform knows the danger
If Reform were confident that any defection is good news, it would have no need for a cut-off date. But Farage has set the local elections date of May 7 as the latest date he will take Conservative switchers. After that, he believes his party would start to look like “a rescue charity for every panicky Tory MP”.
That is revealing. It implies Reform is trying to capture the benefits of defections (experience, profile, the aura of inevitability) while limiting the downside (brand dilution, factional chaos, accusations of being “Tories in new colours”). A deadline is, in effect, an admission that there is such a thing as too many ex-Tories… or at least too many arriving too quickly.
Braverman’s defection was announced at a Veterans for Reform event. Alamy/Guy Bell
The deeper issue is organisational. Recruiting MPs is not the same as building a party machine. Defectors bring personal followings, constituency operations, donor networks and ideological baggage. They can add reach but they can also add volatility, especially if Reform’s appeal relies on projecting discipline and clarity.
And internal tensions are not theoretical. Braverman and Jenrick are not merely Conservatives who happen to have drifted rightwards. They were also senior figures in a government that Reform has attacked as incompetent and deceitful.
That is why a July 2025 post on X by Zia Yusuf (widely circulated as Braverman joined) lands so sharply. In the post, the head of policy at Reform UK referred to the Conservative government’s handling of an Afghan data leak and secret resettlement, asking “who was in government?”, and then named Braverman as home secretary and Jenrick as immigration minister.
The point isn’t whether Yusuf’s earlier argument was fair or unfair. It’s that it feeds an “own goal” narrative. Reform’s senior figures have recently depicted these people as emblematic of the failures of the Conservative state, and now the party is inviting them into the tent.
That forces Reform into a delicate position. If it embraces defectors uncritically, it weakens its anti-establishment brand. If it keeps attacking them, it destabilises its own recruitment strategy.
Braverman’s seat: opportunity and risk
Braverman’s own constituency, Fareham and Waterlooville, illustrates why Reform wants converts of her stature and why the strategy can backfire.
On official local results for the 2024 general election, Braverman won with 35% of the vote; Reform placed fourth on 18%, behind Labour (23%) and the Liberal Democrats (19%).
That is the kind of compressed result Reform dreams about: a sizeable right-populist base already present, plus a Conservative vote that if transferred could turn a marginal into a secure Reform seat. From this perspective, defections are not just PR. They are an attempt to solve Reform’s hardest electoral problem: converting diffuse national support into winnable constituency coalitions.
But the same numbers show the danger. If Braverman fails to bring a large share of Conservative voters with her, the most likely short-term effect is to make the seat more competitive for her opponents through vote fragmentation and tactical voting. Defections can therefore produce a paradox: they make Reform look bigger nationally while making individual contests messier locally.
And at the national level, the risk is huge. Reform’s central claim – that it is the “alternative” to a failed political class – is now colliding with the reality of who it is recruiting from that class.
If Reform wants to remain a pure insurgency, it must keep its distance from establishment figures and prioritise new candidates. If it wants to look like a credible government-in-waiting, it will keep collecting experienced politicians, but it must then accept the costs – intensified scrutiny, more ammunition for opponents, and the constant suspicion that it is simply rebranding Conservatism rather than replacing it.
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