Sponsor at Farage’s own conference accuses him of ‘far right’ rhetoric

But, following research from climate investigations website DeSmog shared with Rats in a Sack, it has emerged Qureshi has used his channel to slam Farage’s views on immigration, claiming in a YouTube video in July that he was spreading “a very far right, very anti-immigrant, anti-[Islam], anti-Pakistan rhetoric”. 

And just a couple of weeks before Reform’s conference, Qureshi also said that anti-immigrant attitudes had been “weaponised” by “far right TV channels like GB News and TalkTV, and then the emergence of the Reform party and the EDL and Tommy Robinson”.

The hard right conspiracist broadcaster GB News is Farage’s principal employer, paying him £400,000 a year to host a show four nights a week. A GB News spokesperson said that Qureshi’s claims about the channel were “absurd”. 

While Quews News was not only allowed to attend Reform’s conference but also to sponsor a panel, other media outlets including The New World and DeSmog were barred from entering, despite previously having their accreditation approved.

Quews News appears to have struck a partnership with the Heartland Institute, despite the latter’s close ties to Farage and other hard right politicians across Europe. The Heartland Institute’s UK-EU director Lois Perry, a short-lived former Ukip leader who hosts a YouTube show on Quews News featuring Heartland branding, claimed at Reform’s conference that her institute is advising the party on its climate policies. She said that she was “very grateful to be able to consult and influence the Reform party at the highest level”.

Perry, who led Ukip for 33 days in 2024, has reiterated this claim on Quews News, stating in a video on September 10: “Do you know why they [Reform] are abolishing net zero and why that’s their policy? Me.” She has also used her show to interview senior Reform figures, including its head of policy Zia Yusuf. 

The Heartland Institute has denied that humans are driving climate change, which it has called a “delusion”.

Reform has pledged to scrap the UK’s commitment to achieving net zero emissions by 2050, and instead campaigns to ramp up fossil fuel production and end subsidies for clean energy.

Suggested Reading

GB News’s random local was a Reform councillor

Rats in a Sack

Farage attended a fundraising dinner for the Heartland Institute in September 2024 during which he called for the group to open a wing “on the other side of the pond”.

In December Heartland announced that it had followed Farage’s advice and was setting up a UK-EU branch. Farage was a “special guest of honour” at the launch event and headlined an invite-only Heartland Institute panel in June this year entitled “Net Zero: The New Brexit?” held at 55 Tufton Street in Westminster.

Perry has said she doesn’t believe climate change is caused by humans. She has said that though it is her “personal belief” that climate change “is happening” it “is not man made”.

Most senior Reform politicians, including Farage, deny basic climate science. At the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in February, the Reform leader said it was “absolutely nuts” for CO2 to be considered a pollutant. In the same month, Farage’s deputy Richard Tice told Sky News: “There’s no evidence that man-made CO2 is going to change the climate. Given that it’s gone on for millions of years, it will go on for millions of years.”

In August, Reform’s Great Lincolnshire Mayor Andrea Jenkyns said in an interview with Times Radio: “Do I believe that climate change exists? No.”

The Heartland Institute has been heavily funded by the pro-Trump Mercer family and dark money groups, and historically received donations from big tobacco, the Koch family – a leading global sponsor of climate denial – and the oil major ExxonMobil.

Quews News, the Heartland Institute and Reform UK were all approached for comment.