Are American billionaires trying to reshape British politics?

0:01The News Agents:This is a Global Player original podcast.

0:13The News Agents:Welcome to the ADF Summit 2025.

0:20The News Agents:But the good news today is that truth is stubborn. The more that truth is suppressed, the harder it becomes to hide it. Contending for truth is a marathon, a lifetime calling. And while it's absolutely right to celebrate the victories, we recognise that we are in a much longer battle. That is a glossy ad for a group you almost certainly won't have heard of, but you might start needing to know. It's a Christian legal group, the Alliance Defending Freedom, and it's working to change political discussion around religion, free speech, abortion in America and possibly here. In America, they've succeeded in overturning 50 years of established law on a right to abortion.

1:14So are they now trying to export those same hot button culture wars issues to the UK? Welcome to the News Agents.

1:29The News Agents:The News Agents. It's John. It's Emily. And on today's episode, we want to take you behind the curtain to this group that we mentioned, the Alliance Defending Freedom, because it is at the centre of some investigative reporting that the New York Times has just carried out. We're going to be hearing from one of its reporters, Jane Bradley, in a moment. But it looks as if the ADF is trying to be a power broker between MAGA Republicans and the British populists under the banner of Nigel Farage's Reform Party. Look, the ADF is phenomenally well-funded, like a lot of these right-wing groups in America are.

2:11They already have the closest links to the White House. J.D. Vance works very closely with them and their influence is pretty extensive. the question is can you export those type of politics those sort of culture wars the concern say over abortion to britain where let's face it overwhelmingly the majority view is that the abortion laws that we've got in this country are broadly right there is no culture war over it can they start one yeah i mean in britain 90 of people support the right to abortion so the adf is not going to come in here saying we've got rid of Roe v. Wade, why don't you do the same?

2:55They frame their mission around free speech, which they will say is in crisis in Britain. We've heard that before, haven't we? We've heard Nigel Farage go to America talking about Lucy Connolly being sentenced. We've heard about those who protest Graham Linehan's arrest at Heathrow Airport for his tweets. And on the other side, we've seen those who've been arrested for their support for Palestine action. So there is a weird sort of horseshoe of people who now say, yeah, there is a free speech problem in the UK. And ADF, I think, have found a very neat way to synthesise these issues, which is the characters who stand outside abortion clinics, in some cases silently praying, in some cases chanting, in some cases petitioning the women.

3:45And there is a question of boundaries and how close you're allowed to be to an abortion clinic. But every time somebody is stopped, you will hear the MAGA voices say, this is a freedom of speech issue, not an abortion issue, a freedom of speech issue. So I think ADF has been very clever on the framing of these hot button issues and the way it starts to potentially get its tentacles into places where abortion might not necessarily be something that they can overturn. Well, let's speak now to the reporter from The New York Times, Jane Bradley, who's an investigative reporter on UK matters for an American audience.

4:26And Jane, thank you so much for being with us. Just explain a bit more about ADF, what it is and who they are. Yeah, I hadn't heard of the ADF before I started looking into this story. So they are basically an American Christian anti-abortion group who are incredibly influential in the US, less so in the UK. They played a key role in overturning Roe v. Wade and ending the constitutional right to abortion in the US. And they're incredibly well connected in the White House. Their allies include Vice President J.D. Vance, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson. and what they're doing today internationally is they're very much expanding the work they've been doing in the US to the UK and that's how I came to hear about them.

5:11They've been growing the amount of staff, the amount of money they're flowing into the UK operation and I wanted to find out what they were up to over here basically. So would we know about them here? Would we feel them here already in the political waters? You would feel them without knowing who they are. So most people I spoke to for this story in the UK had never heard of them, including a lot of MPs from all parties in Westminster. But people will recognise, I think, some of the cases they've brought. So they're kind of making inroads in the UK under this free speech banner, this messaging.

5:46And how they're doing that is they're bringing these cases that challenge the UK's abortion buffer zones, which are these protected areas around abortion clinics to protect women, staff from harassment. So we'll remember the case that J.D. Vance made his own recently of a woman who was too close to an abortion clinic who was praying. And everyone said, well, is that about free speech or is that about invasion of women's rights? Yes, she was one of the cases. The most high profile one was a guy called Adam Conner-Smith, a veteran who was prosecuted for silently praying outside one of these abortion clinics.

6:21And those cases have made headlines kind of across the UK. And like you said, when Vance mentioned it in Munich, it really brought the ADF's work onto an international stage and in this really, really surprising way because he used it to attack the UK, a political ally.

6:37The News Agents:This last October, just a few months ago, the Scottish government began distributing letters to citizens whose houses lay within so-called safe access zones, warning them that even private prayer within their own homes may amount to breaking the law. naturally the government urged readers to report any fellow citizens suspected guilty of thought crime in britain and across europe free speech i fear is in retreat so in that speech in munich again he's kind of doing some of alliance defending freedom adfs work for them i think the thing the other thing about emily was talking about the things that we're kind of not aware of in America some of these groups are so well funded they have got billionaires pouring huge sums of money in and presumably that money is flowing across the Atlantic now to help fund operations whether it be in the UK or anywhere else in Europe.

7:34It's a really interesting question and how I came to this story was because I've been looking at the rise of reform and in particular looking at funding and influence particularly with a US aspect and when I was speaking to some reform sources about how that was going. They said, I should look at the ADF because behind the scenes, they're basically playing this role of power broker between the Trump administration and the UK's populist movement, conservative right as well. And I haven't found any evidence yet of them funding certainly reform. But we do know that the ADF have very deep pockets and very wealthy backers, very influential allies in the US.

8:12And Nigel Farage and his reform party have not been shy about banging the drum about fundraising and how much money they're going to raise and also not being shy about looking across the pond for it too. So I think in this case, this relationship this year is at the genesis that of developing the relationships and the influence, the network, rather than the money yet at least. Yeah, so while I sort of kind of raise the money issue, I suppose the big difference is that there are very strict rules on foreign bodies funding British political parties. But if you want to set up a pressure group in this country and it's not allied to a political party, you can pour as much money in as you like.

8:52Well, also, I would say the political funding rules are not even that strict in the UK. They're strict in that you have to be a British citizen or, you know, you have to have a company incorporated in the UK, like we saw with Musk and X when there were rumoured donations to reform, totaling 100 million, some crazy figure. But there's no rules outside of that. Like you can donate as much as you like. You just have to declare it. Whereas in the US, when I speak to colleagues, there are limits on how much you can fund. And in the UK, where political financing donations are tiny compared to the US, when over there, 100 million, it's still a big money, but it doesn't have the same transformational impact it could have if that had happened in the UK.

9:37But Jane, if you haven't found evidence that they are funding reform, why are you so sure that they're working together? Why are you so sure that there are these links? Because that seems to me a fairly key thing, right? If we're connecting them through money or through funding, you kind of go, well, that's a slam dunk. If they're not, then why do you make that association? Yeah, I think there are two types of influence building there, like you the financial side of things, but there's also the network and the lobbying and developing relationships there. And what my colleague Elizabeth Dias and I found when we started looking into reform's relationship with the ADF is that while publicly there was no real known relationship past the ADF quoting Farage in one public statement on their website, behind the scenes from at least 2024, the ADF had honed in on Farage and reform as a potential political ally and they've been courting them behind closed doors.

10:35And we uncovered details on a string of meetings and briefings that the ADF had basically brokered between influential US officials and Farage and his reform party. And you might remember in DC in Congress last month, Farage was on stage basically attacking the UK's free speech rules. He went to speak to, was it the Judiciary Committee? The Judiciary Committee, the US House Judiciary Committee, yes. It was all along the lines of censorship and free speech. So he took the case, I think, of Lucy Connolly, or he was going to raise the case of Lucy Connolly. We then had the arrest of Graham Linehan, and he was talking about how censored free speech is in the UK to, amongst others, Jamie Raskin.

11:19The News Agents:So I've come today as well to be a klaxon to say to you, don't allow, piece by piece, this to happen. here in America. And you would be doing us and yourselves and all freedom loving people a favour if your politicians and your businesses said to the British government, you've simply got this wrong. At what point did we become North Korea? He also spoke about abortion cases. But what we didn't know at the time was that the behind the scenes, it was the ADF who had set up that meeting. They were the ones who reached out to Farage's team, asked if Farage wanted to give evidence, They passed on his interest to the Republicans, who then sent the formal invitation.

12:01And it wasn't just that meeting. There was also an earlier congressional visit to the UK, to London back in July, where Republicans and Democrats came over to talk about the same topic. And Farage got in this well-reported spat with Democrat Jamie Raskin over Trump. And it was, again, it was the ADF who had brokered that. We interviewed Jamie Raskin just after the Congressional Committee had come over to London. And he'd been shut down. And he talked about how Nigel Farage had shut down his free speech. I suppose the thing that I think about listening to this, there's a part of me that thinks, if these American millionaires just want to waste their money on bringing all this to Britain, let them do it.

12:43Let them squander their money. Because Britain ain't America. We've got different values. We've got God doesn't play the same role in our politics as it does in the US. Abortion is not a hot button issue in the UK as it is in the US. And it's not going to be so. I think that's a really good point and one we've heard a lot. And kind of the attitude I came in at when I first started looking at this was just that, what are they doing here? You know, you've won the fight in the US. You're not going to do the same in the UK. It's so different. You're being a bit naive. but my colleague who's reported on abortion and the fall the toppling of Roe v.

13:18Wade for years I think fairly warned that that was kind of the attitude in the U.S. they thought the constitutional right to abortion was completely protected I think it was the New York Times who wrote that it was a settled issue and they did not think there was any chance that the ADF and the anti-abortion unit movement more widely would be able to overturn that so I think there's a danger in complacency one and two when we see the early when we look at the early success that the ADF have had in the UK under this kind of free speech messaging they have made some big inroads and they are successfully kind of framing the debate around abortion that it makes as a free speech debate so it makes it seem to people who are pro-choice that actually maybe they have a point.

14:05Like I've spoken to independent politicians, cross-party, pro-choice folk who have said, no, look, I'm pro-choice, but I think the ADF have a point here on the abortion clinic buffer zones. You know, we shouldn't be stopping people silently praying, even though I'm pro-choice. And that's exactly their campaign strategy over the UK. And we saw in the US that they think in these long, incremental 50-year kind of stages, they're not thinking of their generation. And And we saw how they use the courts, public messaging, friendly conservative judges to bit by bit erode abortion rights in the US. So I think it'd be wrong to be complacent, but they do have an uphill battle.

14:47So freedom of speech is the Trojan horse. That's what I've been told by others. Yes. And that you then attach anti-abortion messages to it a little bit later on, once you've kind of said about buffer zones and all the rest of it being grotesque infringement. I think that's a strategy we're definitely seeing. And look, the ADF have said to me that free speech, there is much a free speech organization as a pro-choice one. I think that's very careful framing in the UK because they know their audience. Almost 90 percent of adults here support the right to abortion. And it was interesting. A 90 minute interview I had with them.

15:20The only time the press officer interrupted was to insist that the abortion buffer zone work was separate to all the free speech work. And they are a free speech organization as much as a pro-choice one. because that's the message that's landing. We've seen it. We've seen it with Farage in Congress. We've seen it with the public outrage over, you know, on the left and right, whether you've got the peaceful pro-Palestine protesters being arrested under terrorism laws or people being locked up over anti-immigration, inflammatory anti-immigration posts and questions over proportionality around that.

15:54So it's definitely a winning topic more than abortion is over here. So I used this word at the beginning, Jane, the bleeding of American politics into the sort of UK bloodstream veins. Do you think that is happening? Can you feel that happening? Can you feel things changing as a result of what's going on with the ADF? Or do you think you have to kind of say, well, populism is just a global movement now and the Overton window has shifted and the centre is kind of losing ground to extremists now on right and left? I mean, how do you know if it's the work of an organisation itself or if it's just, you know, the Cold War is over, the post-Cold War democracy is over and this is a whole new time?

16:42I think it's a bit of both. I think it's a really smart question. I think there is a rising global populist movement, as we've seen driven out of a rising anti-establishment sentiment with the kind of status quo. And Farage is definitely in reform is definitely a part of that. And the ADF now with the free speech censorship campaigning is kind of attaching on to that. But for me, as a look, I'm British. I cover the UK for an American newspaper and I'm always looking at parallels between the US and the UK. And I think there's an undeniable spreading of influence, both in terms of the conservative Christian anti-abortion movement, but also more widely politically.

17:21If you look at reform and its rise this year and even its annual party conference, which I went to, and it was just make Britain great again, like Magasal hats. It was like a rally. I hadn't been to a British political conference like that. Maybe you guys have. So we're seeing kind of influence there, but also in terms of the topics that are coming over and the focus of advocacy groups. like the ADF, focusing its attention on the UK for a reason. And the reason it's focusing on the UK, I mean, the ADF believes there is a genuine free speech crisis in the UK, but also it's because of the political...

17:55And they don't see the irony of saying that in a country where people are literally getting rounded up and shot and removed and deported for the things that they've said or written. No, I think it's an interesting parallel there. And it's interesting how the Trump administration has been so focused on attacks on the UK and on free speech and Europe when like you say we're looking at people being rounded up over there we had the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk for speaking his mind so I think that it definitely highlights that while America or Trump's administration seems to be focused on issues in the UK it's I don't think they can ignore the issues I mean let me put one to you because the latest kind of Trump obsession is with this disembodied group called Antifa, which he thinks is run like an NGO, you know, some left-wing extremist organisation which has a phone number and a CEO and a headquarters.

18:49Of course it doesn't, it just stands for an anti-fascist movement. But do you think, I mean, do you see anything here that suggests that we're importing, for example, that? Are we going after, you know, a network of domestic left-wing terror, you know, in reform's words? I don't think anything America does can be quite replicated over here for various reasons. But I think what we have seen over here and in the US is this kind of weaponization or utilization of free speech, which traditionally is quite a left wing civil rights kind of topic and agenda, whether right, whether it's the conservative right or the far right, both in the UK and the US.

19:34successfully using it as a way to further their own agenda. You've got Tommy Robinson, who's been out of jail recently, the far-right anti-immigration agitator over here, who has suddenly got 150 ,000 people at a rally in London speaking out about... And says he's been funded by Elon Musk. And says he's been funded by Elon Musk, exactly. So I think that's another example of the parallels, whether it's influence or money, and the sweeping influence from the US to the UK. I mean, the thing that strikes me most from when I was in the States is that, you know, in America, there is a separation of church and state and all they ever talk about is God.

20:13And it's printed on dollar bills in God we trust and, you know, the pledge, you know, one nation under God. In Britain, we have an established church and we never talk about religion. How is it? How are you going to get people in this country? You say it's, you know, conservative Christian movement. It is negligible the amount of support that there is. There aren't the huge out of town churches in the way that there are in America. There isn't the same kind of devotion to God in that public demonstrative way in this country. How does it get a foothold? I think that's a really interesting question.

20:48And I'm really interested in keeping watching, kind of keeping an eye on how groups like the ADF or other American groups are kind of adapting their playbook to the UK. and kind of we've seen it play out a bit in this story about the ADF and Farage in that, like you say, in the US, there are these big figures like Vance, for example, whose kind of Catholic faith is central to his policy, what drives his policies, beliefs in government. We don't really have that in the UK. Like maybe David Lammy is the closest I can think of who talks about his Christian faith, but does it have the same central role?

21:21Farage finds the Church of England quite woke. He does. And he said he's not going to go anymore. But that's why it's interesting, right? because that's why it needs another trojan horse yes and i think they've chosen the moment at least they've chosen farage to focus on building up this ally who has the potential to be someone like advanced figure and future because there's no one else who's a better fit and like sources who've told me that the adf in the uk its lawyers kind of said effectively he's the best out of a bad bunch like they don't have the same prominent religious ally in the UK as they do in the US so they're trying to through this free speech messaging find an ally on that level who might also mention I think abortion every now and then in a quite useful way for them.

22:06So you've talked about the contacts between Farage and ADF I mean what sort of response did you get? Yeah well the ADF through its spokesperson basically said they meet with they're a non-party political organisation and they engage with people from all political parties, it wouldn't comment on any of the briefings, the meetings that we reported saying they're private affairs. And Faraj had his usual colourful response when I reached him by phone. He basically said as a party, they meet with all kinds of people. He denied speaking out against abortion as a whole. He said it's number 468 on their agenda and said he simply wants a debate around whether the limits of 24 weeks for abortion should be rolled back, given the medical breakthroughs since then.

22:51And that's the upshot of what they said. And ADF does say, to be fair, that they talk to all parties of all persuasions and all colours, right? They do, they do. And they've definitely spoken, I know they've spoken to former and current Conservative MPs, politicians. Labour, when I reached out for comments, said they had no record of the ADF making contact with them. So that's something they're in dispute with. Fascinating. Jane, thank you very much indeed. Thanks, Jane.

23:44The News Agents:on our free Global Player app or the new LBC app. LBC, leading Britain's conversation.

23:54The News Agents:The News Agents. So if you caught yesterday's episode, you will remember that we were trying to explain this very complicated, slightly convoluted case of the trial that was cancelled against two British men who were accused of spying for China. Now, this is not the easiest story to tell. And one of the reasons that it's become so sort of central to political life right now is because last week, Kemi Baden-Ock, the Conservative leader, in her speech at conference, accused Keir Starmer directly of essentially cancelling the trial, making the trial go away because it was too embarrassing to put on trial people that could basically give us a difficult, a more difficult relationship with the Chinese government.

24:49So today, the first prime minister's questions back, you know, feels like the start of a new term after all those party conferences are out the way. And Keir Starmer was clearly expecting this to be the area of sort of maximum danger for him. So what does he do? He comes to the Commons and before he's asked a single thing, he makes a statement. And in the statement, he tries to take the air out of the entire case and of the opposition leader's potential questions by saying, you know what? You can see it all. I will publish all the witness statements. I've therefore carefully considered this question this morning.

25:32and after legal advice I have decided to publish the witness statement. Given the information contained we will conduct a short process but I want to make clear I intend to publish the witness statements in full. Let me say this, to be clear, had the Conservative been quicker in updating our legislation a review that started in 2015, these individuals could have been prosecuted and we would not be where we are now. We have lost to John. We have gained a Lewis. What a trade. I know. The day's getting better and better. But I guess he was very aware, wasn't he, that this would be the central discussion today.