The Heritage Foundation has enjoyed a cosy relationship with politicians from Britain – including Reform UK’s latest high-profile recruit, ex-Home Secretary Suella Braverman
It’s the hard-line US think tank which offered a blueprint for Donald Trump’s second term.
But, away from Washington, The Heritage Foundation has enjoyed a cosy relationship with British politicians – including Reform recruit, Suella Braverman. We’ve revealed she accepted a freebie trip worth over £9,000 from it last year to deliver a speech claiming the US-UK special relationship was “in tatters”.
The ex-Home Secretary lavished praise on the foundation, saying it had been “the brightest beacon of liberty, aspiration, and prosperity for many years”. The then Tory MP – who defected to Nigel Farage’s party this week – even labelled it a “giant, towering over the policy think tank landscape”.
READ MORE: [HOLD] Suella Braverman’s £9,000 freebie trip to US by think-tank backing Trump’s ICE after killings
But there are some who would question Braverman’s characterisation. Indeed, one expert says the think-tank has provided the roadmap “for many of the most troubling elements of Trump’s second term”. Here, we take a closer look at The Heritage Foundation and its activities across the pond. Established in 1973, the right-wing think tank describes its mission as “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.”
On its website, among its “most notable achievements”, it says ex-US President Ronald Reagan’s administration implemented almost two-thirds of 2,000 policy recommendations from the foundation’s “Mandate for Leadership”. More recently, its influence has been felt on Trump’s second stint in the White House through its “Project 2025” document. Stretching to over 900 pages and published in 2023, it represented a wish list of Conservative proposals including a massive overhaul of the federal government.
During the 2024 presidential election campaign, Donald Trump attempted to distance himself from the blueprint. “I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump claimed in July 2024. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
But he later changed his tune. In a post on his Truth Social site in October, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief and ex-Heritage Foundation vice president, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.” Since being sworn in for his second term, Trump has pursued plans in Project 2025 to dramatically expand presidential power, as well as reducing the size of the federal workforce.
Braverman is not The Heritage Foundation’s only ally in the UK. Fellow Reform defector Robert Jenrick, who also ditched the Tories to join Farage’s party this month, gave a speech at the Foundation in February 2024. Meanwhile, ex-Tory PM Liz Truss spoke at the foundation later the same year for the US launch of her book, Ten Years to Save the West. Bizarrely, she said conservatives needed “a bigger bazooka”. And, in 2022, the then Tory chairman Oliver Dowden denounced what he claimed was a “painful woke psychodrama” sweeping the West in a speech to the foundation.
Hope Not Hate’s Director of Research, Joe Mulhall, told the Mirror: “The Heritage Foundation, most notably through Project 2025, provided a blueprint for many of the most troubling elements of Trump’s second term. His rapid centralisation of executive power, the purge of the federal civil service, and the way he has pursued a dangerously far-right agenda from day one, was clearly influenced by the work of the Heritage Foundation. The foundation essentially provided a ready-made roadmap for his administration and the results have been terrifying.”
