Nigel Farage to headline Liz Truss’s UK CPAC conference after apparent snub

Reform had previously suggested Farage would be ‘steering clear’ of event, modelled on US conservative gathering

Nigel Farage will be headlining at an American conservative summit brought to the UK by Liz Truss next month alongside a raft of hard-right speakers, despite his party previously suggesting he would be “steering clear”.

The Reform UK leader has announced he will speak in July at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), which claims it wants to “save Britain, save the west”.

He will be one of the main speakers at the event, alongside figures such as the US rightwing influencer Jack Posobiec , who supports “remigration” and previously promoted the fabricated “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory smearing prominent Democrats as paedophiles.

At US CPAC in 2024, Posobiec claimed: “Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely. We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavour to get rid of it.” He later said he just wanted to end the Democrats’ version of democracy.

Other political figures due to speak at the British event include the former Conservative cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, who had also previously indicated he would not take part. He is understood to have changed his mind because he did not like to see Truss being politically shunned.

Farage’s decision to take part comes against a backdrop of Reform UK losing support to the right in the Makerfield byelection, where Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain is gaining a presence.

The Reform UK leader has also been under pressure over his decision to take a £5m gift from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne before the election, which was not declared. It is now under investigation by the standards commissioner, and Farage has not been giving his usual press conferences for some weeks since the Guardian revealed the existence of the gift.