Reform Is the Political Arm of the Fossil Fuel Industry

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Last week’s local elections were a resounding success for Reform UK – and mainstream political journalists are still trying to get their heads around voters’ rejection of both Labour and the Tories. 

But as the dust settles on the upending of the two-party system, there’s something that Westminster analysts are missing: Reform’s victory comes off the back of a sharp increase in funding from fossil fuel investors and climate change deniers. In fact, Nigel Farage’s latest Westminster vehicle is fast establishing itself as the political arm of the fossil fuel lobby. 

Reform’s position on all things green is no secret. The party has promised to abandon key climate targets, and its big shots regularly take aim at Labour’s environmental commitments. Reform’s deputy leader and Boston and Skegness MP Richard Tice has derided “net stupid zero” as a “con” and evidence for man-made climate change as “garbage”, while the party’s new Greater Lincolnshire mayor Andrea Jenkyns has railed against “nut zero” (which sounds disturbingly like an anti-masturbation campaign). 

The party’s 2024 manifesto stated that scrapping net zero and related subsidies would save the public sector £30bn per year, and that “unlock[ing] Britain’s vast energy treasure of oil and gas” would “slash energy bills”. This claim was rolled out again for the local elections this year, with a key campaign message for Reform being the promise to “scrap net zero to cut your energy bills”. 

But let’s be clear: Reform doesn’t want to bin net zero to keep bills down for the benefit of households in the UK. It wants to bin net zero because that’s in the interests of its polluter paymasters. 

According to analysis of Reform’s donations register by the New York Times (NYT), the party raised £4.75m in 2024, 40% of which came from people who have “openly questioned climate change or have investments in fossil fuel or other climate polluting industries”. This isn’t a totally new development: climate researchers DeSmog found that between December 2019 and June 2024, Reform bagged more than £2.3m from oil and gas interests, polluting industries and climate deniers – a figure which amounted to 92% of its overall donations. 

The NYT also identified 38 financial backers who could profit significantly from Reform’s anti-climate policies if the party seized power. David Lilley is one – he’s a metals and mining sector investor who donated £364k to Reform. Another is Jeremy Hosking, a fellow former Tory donor whose trading firm has fossil fuel investments worth over £263m and who gave Reform £250k. Not to mention a £130k donation from First Corporate Consultants, founded by Terence Mordaunt – who is also chair of the pro-fossil fuel think tank the Global Warming Policy Foundation.  

There’s more. Reform’s treasurer and billionaire property developer Nick Candy has been busy wooing wealthy offshore donors in low-tax jurisdictions like Monaco, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates. In fact, in 2024, more than half of the party’s donations – £2.5m – came from those with residences in low-tax countries or business interests in offshore jurisdictions. Part of this new funding drive involves soliciting cash from oil and gas executives. Candy told the Financial Times last month that Reform’s targets are donors in the fossil fuel sector who are “very disillusioned” with UK taxes on the industry’s profits. He also shared that he recently met an energy executive who donated £100k to the party and pledged to give up to £1m.  

These are the interests bankrolling Farage’s party, which professes to be anti-establishment, wary of Westminster politics and on the side of the “silent majority”. But offshore millionaires and oil and gas execs are perhaps as far removed from those struggling with the cost of living perma-crisis as it’s possible to be. 

But here’s a question for Reform. How do its climate-wrecking promises tally with the party’s extreme anti-immigration identity? Climate breakdown will trigger the biggest refugee crisis in the history of humanity, with 1.2 billion people projected to be displaced by 2050 – mainly from the Global South to the Global North. Already, tens of millions are made into refugees by extreme weather events every year. Put simply: if Reform doesn’t want people coming here, why does it support environment-wrecking industries fuelling the climate crisis that forces people to come here? 

This is Farage’s snake oil brand all over, and the messaging doesn’t have to be factual or even make sense. Blame immigrants, blame refugees in small boats – look anywhere but at the real drivers of political disillusionment, decline and economic misery in Britain. 

Reform UK is just a handful of multi-millionaire oil execs in an anti-establishment trenchcoat. Just like Tory MPs and councillors, Tory donors with vested interests in wealth inequality and dirty energy are jumping ship to HMS Reform. And they’re pumping plenty of money into the project – because the potential rewards for their industries and personal fortunes will be more than worth it.