A new report from FairSquare highlights the extensive links between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the UK’s Reform party and the far-right, and calls for the UAE to be added to the “Enhanced Tier” of the UK’s Foreign Influence Registration Scheme.
“Petropulism” details how Reform’s senior leadership, many of whom have strong and increasing ties to the UAE, have enthusiastically advanced the Gulf state’s interests in the UK. It explains how and why the UAE has been supportive of far-right organisations in multiple countries around the world and describes the ruinous impact of these interventions. It outlines multiple instances where the UAE has behaved more like an adversary than an ally of the UK, and conduct includingincluded the torture of UK nationals and serious violations of UK sovereignty. The report calls on UK parliamentarians to take immediate steps to counter the risk that the UAE poses to democracy in the UK.
Reform UK’s vulnerability to foreign influence has been amply and repeatedly demonstrated. Its burgeoning relationship with the UAE has largely gone unnoticed despite the fact that it is acutely vulnerable to the UAE influence through a series of interconnected relationships spanning UAE politics, business and UAE-based investors in UK media. Nigel Farage, deputy Richard Tice, party treasurer Nick Candy and the high-profile Conservative defector, Nadhim Zahawi have all forged strong ties to the UAE. There is no evidence to suggest the UAE is funding Reform, but a large body of evidence would suggest that Reform UK is already an asset that the UAE has used to advance its agenda in a multitude of ways, including via GB News, which itself has strong UAE links.
Senior Reform figures, several of whom have long-standing relationships with the UAE’s commercial and political elite, have effusively praised the UAE’s governance model, defended it from criticism, and advanced its political agenda in the UK. This is most obvious in Reform’s policy towards the Muslim Brotherhood, which the UAE sees as an existential threat to its rule, and which Reform has pledged to ban if elected into government. Nigel Farage has been granted remarkable access to the UAE’s political elite, to the point where the UAE foreign minister granted him an audience on his last official trip to the UK.
The report explains how the UAE’s overtures towards Reform are part of a clear pattern: the UAE will make common cause with any organisation willing to crack down on political Islam. In the Middle East this policy has had a devastating impact on regional peace and security, most notably in Sudan where UAE meddling is at the root of the world’s largest humanitarian disaster, but also in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Outside of the region it has resulted in the UAE forging alliances with the far-right in France, the United States and Hungary. Far-right social media and influencers have boosted UAE messaging. Tommy Robinson returned from a trip to the country repeating UAE talking points on Sudan and Yemen. In March 2026, misogynist influencer Andrew Tate, who has been facing criminal charges for rape and trafficking in the UK since 2025, posted a video that purported to show a note from the UAE authorities welcoming him to the country. He has described the UAE as a “utopia” and called for a “White Dubai”.
The UAE demands to be treated like an ally by the UK government in view of its investments in the UK, which include its ownership of Manchester City, whose interests it has sought to advance via its relationship with the UK government. However, as the report outlines, it often behaves more like an adversary, and its actions suggest that it neither trusts the UK nor has respect for its sovereignty. The UAE has arbitrarily detained and tortured British citizens, accused one of those whom it tortured – the academic Matthew Hedges – of spying, and, as revealed recently by ITV News, deployed a mercenary to covertly surveil, and potentially assassinate, a UK academic. It has funded smear campaigns targeting a prominent UK charity, and in 2026, the UAE announced it was ending funding for Emirati students seeking to study in the UK and briefing British media about alleged Islamist “radicalisation” on university campuses.
A recent government review into foreign interference warned that “hostile states and non-state actors have a clear incentive to attempt to undermine UK democracy”. The Rycroft review was triggered by the jailing of a former Reform leader in Wales for taking bribes in return for giving pro-Russia interviews and speeches. In July, the government added democratic interference to the National Risk Register alongside pandemics and cyber attacks.
FairSquare is calling on the government to instruct the UK’s Defending Democracy Taskforce to launch an immediate and thorough investigation into the UAE’s links to Reform, and in view of its well-documented record of seeking to undermine democracy and the rule of law in various countries around the world and its adversarial approach to the UK to add the UAE to the “Enhanced Tier” of the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme along with Iran and Russia.
Alex Carlen, Research and Advocacy Manager at FairSquare and author of the report said:
“The UAE has a history of disastrous and subversive interventions in other countries. Now, in Britain, it has formed a partnership with a far-right party encouraging mass-deportations. The government cannot be naïve about the threat that this poses and should use the tools it has available to respond, this means immediately classifying the UAE on the highest tier of the foreign influence scheme.”
