Reform UK's love affair with a Middle Eastern dictatorship

Reform UK's love affair with a Middle Eastern dictatorship Submitted by Imran Mulla on Tue, 08/11/2026 - 15:32 Middle East Eye investigates the increasingly close relationship between Nigel Farage's anti-immigration party and the United Arab Emirates Nigel Farage hasn’t always been fond of the United Arab Emirates : Writing in The Telegraph on 15 December 2023 in opposition to a bid by the oil-rich Gulf state to take over the newspaper, he didn’t mince words. “As the UAE is an absolute monarchy with an abysmal human rights record, it seems fanciful that it would take jokes or questions in the spirit that runs through the British press,” Farage argued forcefully. “Would Sheikh Mansour, the vice-president of the UAE and a member of the ruling family of Abu Dhabi, allow one of his relatives to be caricatured in a Telegraph cartoon?