Reform UK leader Nigel Farage’s latest high-profile recruit, Suella Braverman, had a trip paid for by The Heritage Foundation — a supporter of the controversial US border agency ICE
Reform defector Suella Braverman has been bankrolled by a think-tank backing the US border agency behind deadly shootings.
The ex-Home Secretary became the latest high-profile Tory to join Nigel Farage’s party this week. But we can reveal she accepted a freebie trip worth more than £9,000 from The Heritage Foundation — a supporter of controversial ICE in the wake of killings. In recent weeks, agents from the US immigration outfit have shot dead an ICU nurse and an award-winning poet, sparking outrage. In an interview on Tuesday, Donald Trump said his administration was “going to de-escalate a little bit” in Minnesota. “Bottom line, it was terrible. Both of them were terrible,” the US president said.
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And, on Thursday, Trump’s border tsar Tom Homan told how federal immigration officials were developing a plan to reduce agent numbers in Minnesota, but this would depend on cooperation from state authorities. It comes after 37-year-old Alex Pretti was killed by immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Saturday. Two agents involved in the shooting have been put on administrative leave. The nurse’s death came after mum-of-three Renee Good, 37, was shot dead by a federal agent in the same US city earlier this month, sparking nationwide protests in the US. Hours after ICE’s latest killing, The Heritage Foundation defended the agency, saying on X: “The problem is NOT ICE or immigration law enforcement. The problem is leftists obstructing ICE, attacking agents, harassing civilians, and rioting—all without legal consequences. The problem is elected officials inciting lawlessness. The problem is so-called conservatives who see this and blame ICE.”
The Lib Dem deputy leader, Daisy Cooper, said: “This is outrageous and yet more evidence that Farage’s coterie is in cahoots with Trump’s MAGA movement. This staggering sum is proof that Reform is trying to turn Trump’s America into Farage’s Britain.” And a Labour source added: “As if Suella’s defection to Reform wasn’t enough, it’s now emerged she accepted a trip worth thousands of pounds from a US think tank pushing hard-line positions that are completely out of step with most people in Britain. Voters are right to ask whose side she’s really on.”
Hope Not Hate’s Director of Research, Joe Mulhall, added: “Sadly, it is no surprise that Suella Braverman has accepted funds from the Heritage Foundation. Her own increasingly radical politics, which have seen her defect to Reform UK, align well with much of the output of this infamous US think-tank. Braverman was the Home Secretary who described asylum seekers arriving in the UK by boat as an ‘invasion’, adopting and normalising the language of the far right. She’s now in Reform, a party that has called for ‘mass deportations,’ a plan that if enacted would require something akin to a British version of ICE.”
Braverman, who represents Fareham and Waterlooville in Hampshire, accepted flights, accommodation and airport transfers valued at £9,358.71 from The Heritage Foundation in January last year, her register of interests shows. During the visit, she delivered the annual Margaret Thatcher Freedom Lecture. In a tweet promoting her speech, she echoed Trump’s rhetoric, writing: “Too many people are coming into our country who do not abide by our laws, sign up to our values or respect our culture. In fact, too many wish to do us harm. We have all had enough. It’s time to Make Britain Great Again.”
During her speech, Braverman praised The Heritage Foundation as “the brightest beacon of liberty, aspiration, and prosperity for many years” – she called it a “giant, towering over the policy think tank landscape”. She also said: “It’s now for us in the UK to look enviously from the outside in from the dog house of international relations. As the world seems to be waking up from its woke nightmare, be it the United States, Italy or Argentina, we in the UK have a government that is more anti-freedom, anti-aspiration, anti-hope and anti-opportunity than ever before. The contrast couldn’t be starker. As other countries rediscover the keys to economic growth, we in the UK stand on the brink of a recession.” She said the “historic” special relationship between the US and UK was “in tatters” – blaming the Labour government.
Earlier in the month, the then Tory MP also posted a picture on X with the foundation’s Nile Gardiner, a former aide of Thatcher. The Heritage Foundation describes its mission being “to formulate and promote conservative public policies based on the principles of free enterprise, limited government, individual freedom, traditional American values, and a strong national defense”. The right-wing think tank was behind Project 2025, a policy wish list for Trump’s second term. The 2023 document, stretching to over 900 pages, called for Congress to “fund ICE for at least 20,000 ERO [Enforcement Removal Operations] officers”.
Earlier this month, Homeland Security boasted: “After receiving more than 220,000 applications to join ICE from patriotic Americans, ICE blew past its original hiring target of 10,000 new officers and agents within a year. In fact, we have more than doubled our officers and agents from 10,000 to 22,000.”
On Sunday, the Heritage Foundation also tweeted: “You have the right to peacefully protest. You do not have the right to obstruct law enforcement operations. With certain exceptions, you have the right to carry a firearm. You do not have the right to lay hands on law enforcement or resist arrest. If you obstruct law enforcement, lay hands on an officer, or resist arrest while carrying a firearm, you endanger the lives of law enforcement personnel and increase the likelihood of being met with lethal force. This isn’t complicated, though some on the Left and the Right with ulterior motives would like it to be.”
And on Monday, it tweeted: “Many on the Right in Congress were jubilant over the weekend at the prospect of ICE operations slowing down and an opportunity for amnesty emerging. Their knives are still out, but this is an encouraging blow to their plans. Restore order. Deport every illegal alien. Save America. That is the mandate. Nothing less.”
The Heritage Foundation was behind a push for documents relating to Prince Harry’s US visa application being unsealed in court last year. Meanwhile, ex-Tory PM Liz Truss gave a speech at the Foundation in 2024. Braverman, Reform UK and The Heritage Foundation were contacted.
