BIRMINGHAM, England — Nigel Farage has one overriding task: to convince voters he’s ready to take over as British prime minister in an election he believes may be just months away. Core to his effort to portray himself as a prime minister-in-waiting was a joint appearance at the conference with the darling of the French far right, Jordan Bardella, who is hoping to become leader of the French government after a presidential election next year. The pair signed a “memorandum of understanding” pledging to stop the flow of small boats trafficking migrants across the English Channel to British shores.
For Farage, it was a chance to prove he can cut a deal with a foreign political leader even before he’s elected to office. The surprise was that the leader wasn’t Donald Trump. Showing off a French connection — and even suggesting he would speak in French when he repays the visit — might just help dilute the impression that Farage is a disciple of the world’s most divisive and disruptive head of state.
Farage has long made a point of his ideological kinship with the American president, but these connections to the “Make America Great Again” universe now pose perhaps the most serious threat to his campaign to win power in the U.K. Farage’s set-piece Friday press conference alongside Bardella was overshadowed by a storm of controversy over an alleged funding scandal that hours earlier had claimed the scalps of two of his most senior aides. One of them, policy chief James Orr, is almost as well plugged into Trump’s world as the Reform leader himself.
Orr has nurtured a friendship with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, whom he has described as a kind of “mentor.” For his part, the vice president has called Orr his “British sherpa.” This week, however, Orr was at the center of an undercover sting operation and featured prominently in a Channel 4 TV report, apparently planning to arrange potentially rule-breaking funding from a foreign benefactor — via a U.K. middleman — to produce favorable polling. Farage brushed off the furor on Friday, insisting the party had broken no laws and received no dubious money.
Orr has now stood down, along with another aide, pending an investigation. It’s not clear whether he could return to Farage’s team if the procedure finds he wasn’t seriously at fault. But Farage needs to distance himself from Trump’s world for other reasons, not least because the two men have a long friendship.
Early last year, Farage told his supporters that Trump’s victory in the U.S. 2024 presidential election should serve as an “inspiration” to their movement. Since then, however, Trump has dismayed some of the most important voter groups in the U.K. that Farage needs to win over if he is to succeed, first over his stance toward Ukraine and then over the Iran war. Trump was unpopular in many European countries even before Iran.
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