Article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog. [Article was published 10 June 2026]

Reform has been chasing even closer ties to Trump’s allies.

Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf is set to speak tomorrow at the Heritage Foundation, the group behind the “extreme” ‘Project 2025’ playbook for Donald Trump’s second term.

Yusuf, Reform’s home affairs spokesperson, is jetting to Washington, D.C., for an event with Nile Gardiner, director of the Heritage Foundation’s ‘Thatcher Center’.

The event description states that the pair will be discussing “key transatlantic priorities, including mass migration, border security, deportation policy, and the broader challenge of safeguarding Western institutions and values.”

The Heritage Foundation organised Project 2025, the 900-page document which proposed a series of radical, ultra-conservative policies that have served as a blueprint for Trump’s second-term agenda.

The dossier recommended banning abortion pills, restricting access to contraceptives, and removing federal funding for groups providing abortion services. “Conservatives in the states and in Washington, including in the next conservative administration, should push as hard as possible to protect the unborn in every jurisdiction in America,” it stated.

It also proposed bulldozing U.S. climate policies – slashing restrictions on fossil fuel extraction, scrapping state investment in renewable energy, and gutting the Environmental Protection Agency. 

The Heritage Foundation said that the federal government should “eradicate climate change references from absolutely everywhere” – a policy carried out by Trump, who has called climate science a “hoax”.

A core recommendation of Project 2025 was to “dismantle the administrative state” by centralising power with the president, slashing government funding, and replacing career civil servants with ideological loyalists. Russell Vought, a Heritage Foundation alumni and one of the main co-authors of Project 2025, now serves as Trump’s director of Office of Management and Budget – wielding significant power in restructuring the federal government.

Much of this agenda is shared by Reform and its leader Nigel Farage. After years of silence on abortion, Farage recently called for the UK’s abortion limit to be reduced, labelling the current 24-week limit “utterly ludicrous”. The Reform leader has been forging alliances with U.S. anti-abortion groups, while appointing anti-abortion figures to key positions in the party – including its head of policy James Orr, who doesn’t think abortion should be allowed at any stage of foetal development, even in pregnancies resulting from rape.

“Zia Yusuf should be ashamed to share a platform with the Heritage Foundation,” said Abortion Rights chair Kerry Abel. “The architects of Project 2025 are a global threat to abortion rights, climate action and democracy.

“You cannot flirt with the far right in Washington and pretend it has no consequences here. Anyone giving credibility to this extreme agenda must be called out.”

Reform is a pro-oil party that calls for the UK’s climate targets to be scrapped. Farage has said it’s “nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant. The party has also launched a ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (DOGE) to identify public spending cuts in local authorities – mirroring Trump’s agency with the same name, which has overseen billions in cuts to vital public services.

“Advocates of this brand of right-wing politics, championed by Donald Trump and embraced by Reform UK politicians, are aiming to spread their divisive rhetoric and regressive policies, from opposing abortion to actively undoing climate progress,” said Cary Mitchell, executive director of operations at Best for Britain, which campaigns against populism. “Brits have been clear that they don’t trust Trump – and a knock-off version of his authoritarian approach here in the UK would only risk all our rights.”

Farage has received £52,000 in speaking fees and £12,500 in flights and accommodation for addressing pro-Trump, MAGA events since being elected to Parliament in July 2024.

In recent days, Farage announced that he would be making a keynote address to CPAC GB, a pro-Trump conference being held in London in July. The British spin-off is being organised by disgraced former Conservative prime minister Liz Truss, and Farage initially indicated that he would be “steering well clear” of the event, only to now reverse his decision.

A version of this article was published by The New World.

Farage, a longstanding Trump supporter, has recently been attempting to put some distance between his party and the U.S. government, following the president’s unpopular war in Iran, which Farage has supported.

However, Yusuf’s appearance at the Heritage Foundation – and Farage’s at CPAC GB – underscores Reform’s MAGA loyalty. According to The Spectator, key figures behind Project 2025 have been “shuttling between London and Washington” to bestow their wisdom on Farage, while Gardiner has reportedly been acting as a bridge between the White House and Reform.

Reform politician Matthew Goodwin and its economic spokesperson Robert Jenrick have also made speeches to the Heritage Foundation in recent years.

Gardiner and the Heritage Foundation have regularly been given a platform on the right-wing media channel GB News, Farage’s largest income source since becoming an MP in July 2024.

Gardiner, who served as a foreign policy researcher and aide to former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has made dozens of appearances on GB News. During those appearances, he has called for the UK to reintroduce the death penalty, labelled the UK government “a bunch of cowardly appeasers” for not supporting Trump’s military intervention in Iran, and called for pro-Palestine protestors to be deported if they have been arrested and are foreign nationals.

Reform has been forging close ties to a number of pro-Trump groups for a number of years. In December 2024, Farage helped to launch the Heartland Institute, a co-author of Project 2025, in the UK and is now being advised by the climate science denial group.

As reported by DeSmog, two thirds of the party’s funding has come from those with financial interests in fossil fuels.

“Reform make out like they’re your mate down the pub, standing up for everyday people. But they’re actually working closely with the establishment think tanks that helped put Trump into power, and raking in millions in donations from billionaires,” said Green Party peer Natalie Bennett. “We can see who’s pulling the strings and who they’re really working for.”

Reform and the Heritage Foundation were approached for comment.

Article by Sam Bright republished from DeSmog.