Farage has taken over £83,000 from US anti-abortion groups

The i Paper has revealed that Nigel Farage has personally taken over £83,000 in earnings and expenses from US anti-abortion groups – a figure drawn entirely from Parliament’s Register of Members’ Financial Interests, meaning it covers only the money he has declared. This comes less than a week after Reform’s Makerfield candidate Robert Kenyon faced a live audience on Question Time having previously written that “abortion is the cowardly act of women murdering a defenceless baby and that women do it so they can shag anyone they want.”

It comes as Good Law Project reveals that ADF International – the UK arm of the American conservative Christian legal group that played a key role in overturning Roe v Wade – has tripled its UK spending since 2020 and is forging deeper ties with Reform. And it comes as Farage is under active parliamentary investigation for failing to declare a £5 million gift from crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne. The £83,000 is what he has declared.

The money – what we know about

The i Paper’s analysis of the Register of Members’ Financial Interests identifies four specific payments from anti-abortion linked groups:

£25,000 for a speaking engagement in 2024 with the AZ Liberty Network, a coalition that includes groups focused on restricting abortion rights in Arizona. At the ‘Keep Arizona Free Summit’ that August, Farage told the assembled lobby groups they were “saving western civilisation.”

£44,300 for a single speech – plus £9,500 in flights and accommodation – from the Club for Growth in March. The Club for Growth provides financial support to anti-abortion political candidates.

£4,360 from the New York Young Republicans Club for flights and hotels. The organisation supports New York legislation that would restrict abortion access.

£280 for accommodation at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2025, an organisation that has stated it “considers every abortion a human tragedy.”

The figure is £83,000 in total from declared sources. Given that Farage is currently under parliamentary investigation for failing to declare a £5 million gift from Christopher Harborne – as we have covered extensively in our 50 questions piece and related coverage – there is no particular reason to assume £83,000 represents the complete picture.

ADF International – tripling its UK presence

Separate analysis by Good Law Project reveals the scale of the US anti-abortion infrastructure being built in Britain. ADF International (UK), the UK arm of Alliance Defending Freedom, spent more than £1.4 million on its activities in the UK last year – more than three times its 2020 spending. It has received more than £4 million in funding from its US parent since 2018. Its UK staff has grown from two employees to eleven.

ADF International is not a peripheral organisation. The parent Alliance Defending Freedom played a key role in the 2022 US Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v Wade, stripping millions of American women of the federal right to abortion. In the past year in the UK, ADF International has defended four people charged with breaching safe access zones around abortion clinics – zones that prohibit handing out anti-abortion materials or obstructing access – two of whom were convicted. It has framed these prosecutions as free speech violations.

Last year the New York Times reported that ADF supplied the Trump administration with attack lines casting the UK as hostile to free speech in private briefings. JD Vance – who as we reported in our Lammy and Vance piece made false claims about Henry Nowak’s murder in the same week – later raised one of the buffer zone cases as an example of the UK “backsliding” on human rights.

ADF reportedly orchestrated Farage’s appearance before the US House Judiciary Committee, where he accused the UK government of clamping down on free speech – and the cases he described as censorship included the prosecution of UK anti-abortion campaigners for violating those buffer zones. ADF also reportedly brokered a secret meeting between Farage and senior US State Department officials in London.

Reform’s newly appointed head of policy, Cambridge professor James Orr, was invited to speak at ADF International’s London event in February 2025. Orr opposes abortion at any stage of foetal development – including in pregnancies resulting from rape.

What Reform says – and what it does

Reform has no official abortion policy on its published policy pages. Farage describes himself as “pro-choice.” These positions require examination alongside the record.

When Farage ran the Brexit Party, the organisation had no stance on abortion and the New York Times could find no record of his having one. Then, as the i Paper’s analysis notes, as if by magic, in November he wanted to talk about rolling back the abortion time limit. By May this year the current 24-week limit was “absolutely ludicrous” and “totally out of date.” When the New York Times asked him about his apparent new interest in reproductive rights, he called it “bollocks.”

The parliamentary record tells a different story from the rhetoric. In April, Parliament voted to decriminalise abortion in England – repealing Victorian-era laws that had allowed the state to investigate and prosecute people for obtaining an abortion. Four Reform MPs voted against the move. They voted instead for a further restriction requiring in-person consultation for abortion medication.

Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, described the decriminalisation as “abortion carnage.” Laila Cunningham, the party’s London mayoral candidate and the same Laila Cunningham who appeared on the Newsnight panel we reported in our Nowak Newsnight piece, called the move “the ending of life as a policy solution.” Suella Braverman – now Reform’s equalities spokesperson – stated that Reform would reverse the decriminalisation of abortion.

Robert Kenyon, the Makerfield byelection candidate Reform continues to fully support despite everything, has described abortion as “the cowardly act of women murdering a defenceless baby” and said women have abortions “so they can shag anyone they want.” He refused to discuss or withdraw the comment on Question Time.

The 86% problem

YouGov polling suggests that 86% of Reform UK voters support the right to abortion. This is the specific gap between what Reform’s voter base believes and what Reform’s financial relationships, parliamentary votes and senior figures’ public statements point toward.

Reform keeps its abortion position deliberately vague. There is no policy on its published pages. Its manifesto contains no specific commitment to restrict or reverse abortion rights. But its head of policy opposes abortion in cases of rape. Four of its MPs voted against decriminalisation. Its deputy leader called decriminalisation “abortion carnage.” Its equalities spokesperson says it should be reversed. Its leader has taken over £83,000 from groups organised specifically around restricting or eliminating abortion access. And the organisation that helped overturn Roe v Wade in America has tripled its UK spending and is deepening its ties with the party.

The argument that Reform “has no plans to alter UK abortion law” is the argument a party makes when it has not yet won power. The personnel, the money, the votes and the rhetoric all point in the same direction.