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Americas+1 212 318 2000

EMEA+44 20 7330 7500

Asia Pacific+65 6212 1000

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage

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Nigel Farage hosted a private lunch event in Dubai on Tuesday with the backing of Indian billionaire Sunny Varkey, underscoring the Reform UK party’s embrace of wealthy donors based in the United Arab Emirates.

Farage was accompanied at the event by Nadhim Zahawi, a former Conservative chancellor who recently defected to Reform, and the party’s honorary treasurer Nick Candy, a property developer, according to people familiar with the matter who were granted anonymity discussing private matters.

The luncheon was held at Rockfish, a beach-side seafood restaurant, with invitations sent out to a select group of wealthy expatriates and Emiratis. The involvement of Varkey, an education entrepreneur who is based in Dubai, was not widely advertised ahead of the event, the people said.

Varkey’s support is the latest example of Reform receiving backing from someone who is not a resident of the UK. According to data from the third quarter of last year, Reform received £9 million ($12.3 million) — the largest sum a UK political party has ever received from a living donor — from Thailand-based crypto investor Christopher Harborne.

Overall, Reform accepted more than £10 million in private donations that quarter, out-fundraising all the other UK political parties combined, data from the Electoral Commission shows.

The UAE — and the wider Middle East region — is seen by Reform to be key to its trade and foreign policy strategy, according to one person familiar with the matter.

But coming just days after Farage returned from the World Economic Forum’s annual summit in the Swiss ski town of Davos, the Dubai jaunt is likely to amplify criticism from political rivals that the Reform leader rarely spends time in his parliamentary constituency of Clacton.

Read More: Farage Meets Bessent at Davos as He Hones Plan for UK Economy

Varkey’s Global Education Management Systems owns nearly 20 fee-paying schools across England and Switzerland through Bellevue Education. The UK’s Labour government angered private school providers last year when it decided to levy value-added tax on school fees, which had previously been exempted from the 20% rate.

On Wednesday evening, Farage is due to deliver a speech at an event in Dubai hosted by right-wing British news channel GB News, according to people familiar with his plans.

The trip is Farage’s second to the Emirates in two months. In December, the UAE government paid for the populist politician to travel to the country to meet senior officials and attend the Formula One Grand Prix at a cost of around £10,000, according to the UK register of MPs’ financial interests.

In the Abu Dhabi paddock for the Formula One season-finale. @Briatore pic.twitter.com/MzIL9Yk4ls

Candy accompanied Farage to the car-racing event and was introducing him to other guests as the future British Prime Minister, according to people in attendance.

Zahawi, who was born in Iraq but fled to the UK as a refugee from Saddam Hussein’s regime, spends a significant chunk of his time in Dubai where he owns residential property. Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, also frequently travels to the city to visit his partner.

Reform has been leading opinion polls in the UK for almost a year, though a general election does not need to be held until mid-2029. Support for the party has dipped to around 25% in recent weeks, according to YouGov polls that had showed highs of 29%, with some indication that the ebbing popularity of US President Donald Trump — whom Farage calls a friend — has been weighing on its prospects.

Farage has been attempting to distance himself from Trump in recent media appearances without angering the US President. In Davos, he said Trump was “wrong” to claim that NATO troops from Britain and other European countries had failed to play their part in the Afghanistan war. And while he said the US should respect Greenland’s autonomy, after Trump threatened to take over the island by force, he added that the world would be a “better place” if the US did own the territory.

At a press conference on Monday, Farage said the actions of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, had “gone too far” after video footage appeared of its federal officials shooting dead nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis as he attempted to help a woman tackled by ICE agents.

But the issue of whether ICE was doing a good job “is another question,” he added when asked whether the agency would be a blueprint for immigration enforcement in the UK under a Reform government.

(Updates to add overall Reform donations in fifth paragraph.)

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