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It’s thirsty work bringing down the British establishment... and what better place to do it than a Mayfair gentlemen’s club?
Fortunately for Nigel Farage, there was plenty of Dom Pérignon on hand last week as he tried to tempt billionaire outsiders to back Reform UK at a fundraiser at Oswald’s, a private members’ club next door to familiar names such as Boodles, Tiffany and Cartier.
Oswald’s – named after the proprietor Robin Birley’s grandfather rather than any other Oswalds that might spring to mind – is an obvious venue for someone looking to cement their man-of-the-people image. Everyday folk such as the Prince of Wales, Princess Eugenie, Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece, the Blairs, the Johnsons and the Beckhams have all previously enjoyed Birley’s hospitality, according to Tatler, a touchstone for middle England sensibilities.
On the eve of the event, Farage warned GB News viewers that if Reform achieved electoral success at the next election, he was “quite sure that the establishment won’t exactly come out with a tray of gin and tonics” to welcome him. Far more appropriate for the Dulwich College old boys’ golf society captain and his guests last week were champagne and “jeroboams of white burgundy and double magnums of Tempo d’Angelus”, according to the Times.
Various wealthy businessmen who have demonstrated distrust of the British establishment by donating money to the Conservative party joined Farage at Oswald’s. Among them were Reform’s treasurer, the billionaire property developer Nick Candy, the near-billionaire non-dom campaigner Bassim Haidar and the businessman Mohamed Amersi, who failed to win a defamation action against Charlotte Leslie, a former Tory MP, in 2023.
Candy’s wife, the former singer and actor Holly Valance, was there too, as was Lady Victoria Hervey, once famous for being famous and now famous for campaigning for the release of Ghislaine Maxwell and taking selfies with Maga politicians in the US alongside Liz Truss.
The event raised at least £1m, Reform said afterwards, and the party moved on to Essex on Friday for a rally, after which Farage’s right-hand man, the multimillionaire property developer Richard Tice, batted away enquiries about James McMurdock, the Reform MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock who spent 21 days in custody after his conviction for assaulting a former girlfriend 18 years ago.
Oswald’s was quiet on Friday night, with just a couple of chauffeurs doomscrolling in their limousines in Albemarle Street as they waited for their passengers, and a few partygoers in vertiginous heels chatted with their companions.
Birley was not around to discuss the party, a doorman promised; he owns two London clubs and another in New York – an empire to replace that created by his father, Mark Birley, founder of several West End establishments. The most famous was Annabel’s, named after his son’s mother, Lady Annabel Goldsmith, who went on to marry James Goldsmith, the founder of the Referendum party.
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Mark Birley cut his son out of his life after Robin hired a private detective to investigate his sister India-Jane’s love life. Robin Birley set up his first club, 5 Hertford Street, in 2012, which became known as “the Brexit sex dungeon” because Farage was often joined there by fellow Eurosceptics such as Arron Banks, Michael Gove, Priti Patel and Boris Johnson, according to Behind Closed Doors: The Secret Life of London Private Members’ Clubs by Seth Alexander Thévoz.
The club was so central to Brexiters that Truss sparked a row in 2022 by insisting on hosting a taxpayer-funded lunch for a US trade representative at 5 Hertford while she was trade secretary.
“It was here, over champagne in the nightclub, that Brexit trade deals were brokered, rather than in the more conventional Pall Mall clubs,” Thévoz writes. “To understand Robin Birley’s clubs is to understand Brexit.”
