Britain‘s highest-polling party is cultivating increasingly close ties with the United Arab Emirates, a relationship that was on full display during Nigel Farage’s visit to the wealthy Gulf state.
The British MP and leader of the Reform Party – known for championing net-zero migration and mass deportations – is currently in Dubai.
On Wednesday evening, he gave a keynote speech at a private party hosted by GB News, the right-wing British television channel for which Farage is a presenter.
Middle East Eye can reveal that Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, the UAE’s minister of industry and advanced technology, attended the party, which was held on the rooftop of the high-end Ritz-Carlton hotel and attended by around eighty people.
Farage expressed a great deal of admiration for the UAE, according to sources at the party.
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“Look around at the palm,” Farage said in his speech. “I want Clacton to look like this,” referring to Farage’s constituency in England.
He praised the UAE for banning the Muslim Brotherhood and said a Reform government would do the same, according to sources.
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“We have a lot to learn from you, my dear sirs,” Farage said, addressing the Emirati officials in attendance.
“We recognise you are our friends,” he added.
“A Brexit London, a Reform London, will remember you.”
To many, it may seem like a strange alliance, but Abu Dhabi is thought to have found common ground with the right-wing Reform UK over a shared opposition to political Islam.
Last September, Farage pledged to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, citing the fact that several Gulf states have done so.
And just last week, The Financial Times reported that Farage was pushing for a meeting with the president of the UAE, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed.
Shared values
Christopher Chandler, the founder of Dubai-based investment company, Legatum, which funds GB News, also gave a speech.
He said he loves Britain but is too pessimistic to live there, and admires the UAE’s vision.
Laila Cunningham, Reform’s mayoral candidate for London, was spotted at the party.
So was Nadhim Zahawi, the former Conservative chancellor who defected to Reform earlier this month and is known to spend a significant amount of time in Dubai, where he owns residential property.
MEE has contacted Reform for comment.
On Tuesday, Farage hosted a private lunch with the backing of Dubai-based Indian billionaire Sunny Varkey at Rockfish, a beachside restaurant.
The lunch was reportedly attended by wealthy UAE-based donors. Farage had visited Abu Dhabi just last month on a trip reportedly paid for by the UAE government.
According to the FT, sources said the Emirati leadership wanted to engage with Reform “owing to a shared opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood”.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Cairo in 1928 and is one of the world’s largest and best-known groups espousing political Islam.
It has long maintained that it is a peaceful organisation that wishes to participate in politics democratically.
But it is considered a major threat by many autocratic governments in the Middle East and North Africa.
This is because, in rare instances in which free elections are held in the region, parties affiliated with the organisation often win outright or form the largest opposition party.
The group is banned in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and the UAE.
In January 2025, the UAE labelled eight British organisations as terror groups over alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood, although none of these organisations are considered to have broken any British laws.
And in 2023, it was revealed that the UAE had paid a private intelligence firm based in Geneva, Alp Services, to smear Britain’s largest Muslim charity, Islamic Relief Worldwide, by seeking to link its officials with the Muslim Brotherhood and violent extremists.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
