Nigel Farage gives JD Vance ally top policy role

LONDON — Nigel Farage has appointed James Orr as head of policy at his populist outfit Reform UK — a move which further bolsters the party’s links to U.S. President Donald Trump.

A leading figure in the national conservative movement in the U.K., Orr has been described by JD Vance as his “British sherpa.”

The associate professor at the University of Cambridge, who has advised Reform since last fall, was handed the top policy role Tuesday as Farage unveiled his shadow Cabinet team.

“As senior adviser to Nigel Farage, I have seen up close just how determined he and Reform are to fix broken Britain,” Orr said in a statement.

“Working alongside [Reform UK MP] Danny Kruger in his role as Head of PrepGov, I will help to build the most serious policy operation in British politics — and give our shadow Cabinet the support they will need to govern,” Orr added.

Vance camaraderie

Orr was among a handful of senior U.K. political figures who met Vance when he visited the U.K. last summer.

David Lammy, the U.K. foreign secretary at the time, and Robert Jenrick, now Farage’s shadow chancellor, who was then a Conservative Party politician, also met Vance during his trip.

In an interview in 2024 Orr claimed to have a “kind of camaraderie” with the now U.S. vice president in “trying to work out what the new right should look like in the 21st century.” He first met Vance, who he describes as a “mentor,” in 2019.

Orr defended Vance’s provocative comments about “childless cat ladies” before the 2024 presidential election, telling POLITICO’s Power Play podcast the then vice presidential candidate saw himself as an anti-establishment figure, meaning he “can’t play nicely.”

Farage’s new policy chief also has strong links to other Trump allies. Last month he organized a series of lectures in Cambridge with Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and an early Trump donor.

Unraveling Blairism

At Reform UK’s conference last fall, Orr suggested a significant part of Reform’s policy agenda would overturn former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s “catastrophic and extremely consequential” Labour government. Blair was prime minister from 1997 to 2007.

“They completely overturned the constitutional, legal, political and cultural landscape of the United Kingdom for 25 years. We’re going to spend the best part of the next 15 years trying to unravel it,” Orr said during a panel discussion at the Birmingham gathering.

At the same event Orr also backed a “British ICE” equivalent of America’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Trump’s flagship immigration policy has since come under heavy criticism after two protestors against its operations were killed in Minneapolis last month.

“Don’t underestimate how much effect a small band of dedicated people in the cockpit of the nation can do,” Orr said at the time.

Orr also suggested Farage would run a minority government if Reform fell short of an overall majority and “dare” opposition parties “to continue ruining the country by voting against the policies that it clearly needs and wants and we’ll have another general election at Christmas.”

‘Why are we worrying about Kyiv?’

Orr’s foreign policy stance is likely to come under heavy scrutiny. Last summer, Reform’s new head of policy described Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “regional Slavic conflict …. happening in the world that I don’t care very much about.”

Orr said he was more worried about protecting Kent from irregular migrants crossing the English Channel, whom he called “illegal invaders.”

“Why are we worrying about Kyiv? Let’s fix Kent first. Then we worry about Kyiv,” he said.

The rhetoric will only deepen existing skepticism about Reform’s support for Ukraine, even though Farage pledged to shoot down Russian jets invading NATO airspace if he became PM.

Dan Bloom and Esther Webber contributed to this report.