Nigel Farage is scheduled to make a third visit to the US in little more than two months since he was elected MP, to speak at a dinner for a rightwing thinktank where tables cost up to $50,000 (£38,000) each to reserve.
The Reform UK leader is listed as the main speaker at a benefit event for the Heartland Institute, an Illinois-based organisation which is a denier of human-created climate change. Its president, James Taylor, who is also speaking, has called climate change “a sham”.
Farage, who was elected to represent Clacton in Essex on 4 July, went to the Republican national convention in Milwaukee two weeks after the general election, and is due to speak at an event in Arizona on Saturday.
On 13 September, he is scheduled to be the keynote speaker at the Heartland Institute’s 40th anniversary dinner in Chicago. The thinktank described Farage as “a leading voice in the fight for freedom and the architect of the new conservative movement in the UK and across Europe”.
Individual tickets cost from $199 each, with tables priced from $4,000 upwards. What is described as a “platinum table” for nine people, who will sit with Farage during the dinner, is listed on the institute’s website as having already sold for $50,000.
For the event in Arizona, Farage’s register of interests as an MP showed he has thus far been paid just under £12,000 as a “deposit”.
The Heartland Institute has been accused of promoting climate change denialism. In an article last October for the thinktank, Taylor argued that there “cannot be a climate crisis when temperatures are unusually cool”, saying “virtually every alarmist climate prediction has proven false” and that warmer temperatures “are a blessing, not a curse”.
Speaking to the Mirror about the Arizona speech this weekend, Farage said he was honouring a longstanding commitment “because I am not the sort of person who lets people down, otherwise you get a terrible reputation”.
A Reform spokesperson confirmed Farage would attend the dinner and would be paid, saying the amount would be declared in his register of interests. The event was another commitment Farage had made before being elected and wished to fulfil, they added.
Separately, Reform’s ousted former deputy leader, Ben Habib, has expressed concerns about the extent of Farage’s control over the party after its chief executive was also asked to step aside.
Paul Oakden had been chief executive since the party, which is a private limited company, was launched as the Brexit party, and owned minority shares. These will now go to Farage, boosting his shareholding up from 53% to 60%.
Habib, who was co-deputy leader from March 2023 until last month, told Times Radio: “Nigel is professionalising the party, as you say, in the way that he wished to do it. Whether or not it democratises is a completely different thing.
“Now, I am aware that they are setting up branch structures, and a constitution for the party is apparently being drafted.
“But if that constitution and if these branch structures do not remove the control Nigel has on the party through the limited company structure, where he owns the majority of the shares … then it won’t be truly democratised. And I fear for the future of Reform UK if it isn’t properly democratised.”
A Reform spokesperson has said the party decided to “sunset” the chief executive role as part of a shake-up in the party’s structure.
They added: “As part of the process of professionalising the party, we have restructured the organisation. The party made the decision to sunset the CEO position.
“The party will be rapidly building a branch structure across the country and standing thousands of candidates in local elections next year.”
