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Nigel Farage has been urged to explain why a US anti-abortion advocacy group helped arrange a meeting in London with Trump administration officials and diplomats.
The meeting, first reported by the New York Times, took place in March between Farage and a delegation from Trump’s state department, which it said was overseen by the US embassy and brokered by the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) group. The meeting was said to have discussed abortion rights, free speech and online safety laws.
ADF, which supports free speech and religious freedom, has worked in Britain to help challenge the prosecutions of Christians who were arrested for praying silently outside abortion clinics, breaching “buffer zones”. The group, which is non-politically partisan and says it is a human rights charity, said it was not present at the meeting and had never met with Reform UK politicians to discuss abortion law.
In response to the meeting, the Liberal Democrats accused Farage of working with Trump officials and anti-abortion campaigners who want to water down women’s rights and urged him to explain what was discussed.
Daisy Cooper, the party’s deputy leader, also called on the government to summon the US ambassador to get to the bottom of “what looks like a blatant attempt to interfere in the UK’s domestic laws”.
“Nigel Farage needs to come clean … and explain if his party would weaken women’s rights if he came to power,” she said.
“The Liberal Democrats will stand up against these attempts to turn Trump’s America into Farage’s Britain and roll back the clock on decades of progress.”
Reform was approached for comment. Asked by the New York Times about his relationship with the ADF, Farage said his party talks with “all sorts of groups” and denied speaking against abortion, telling a reporter that she was “talking utter bollocks”. He said that abortion was “No 468” on Reform UK’s agenda and noted he had “hardly ever spoken about it in 30 years”.
“My point was that the 24-week limit was looking in serious jeopardy given that we actually spend a fortune saving babies at 22 weeks,” he said. “Maybe we need to rethink all of that because there is clearly a legal inconsistency.”
The New York Times also reported that the ADF helped to arrange Farage’s three-hour testimony to US Congress earlier this year, where he described Britain as “awful” and criticised the Online Safety Act.
An ADF International spokesman said: “The Liberal Democrats have made allegations here that are simply wrong. To be clear, ADF International has never met with any Reform UK politician to discuss abortion law. We never attended any breakfast meeting between US embassy staff and Nigel Farage. And it was the US House Judiciary Committee, not ADF International, that decided who should testify before Congress.
“The reality is ADF International is a registered human rights charity in the UK and is non-politically partisan. We are committed to tackling the free speech crisis in this country and to protecting fundamental freedoms for all across the world.”
A spokesman for the US embassy in London said officials regularly met those from different faiths and “elements of the political spectrum” in Britain and “anywhere else where freedom of expression is under threat.”
In February, the US vice-president, JD Vance, told the Munich Security Conference that UK prosecutions of those defying abortion buffer zones showed a “backslide away from conscience rights” and a “retreat” from free speech. He highlighted the case of Adam Smith-Connor who was convicted last October of breaching a designated “safe zone” outside a Bournemouth abortion clinic.
