Far-right French politician to give speech at Reform UK conference
The President of the party formerly known as the National Front will be a headliner at Reform's party conference
Jordan Bardella, the President of French far-right party, the National Rally (RN), will speak at Reform UK’s party conference in Birmingham in September.
The party, formerly known as the National Front, was founded by Jean Le Pen, and is now led by well-known hard-right politician and his daughter, Marine Le Pen.
As reported by The Spectator, Farage had lunch with Bardella last December, where they discussed how to stop small boats crossing the channel.
A senior party source confirmed the story, saying that: “Jordan and Nigel get along extremely well, they bonded over their shared political interests over a long lunch. Jordan has already promised publicly that he will change the law in order to allow Nigel to turn the boats back to France – this will be a new dawn for Europe.”
Bardella is scheduled to speak on the Friday of the three-day conference, with his remarks expected to focus on the upcoming election and how the RN and Reform parties would work together in office.
Marine Le Pen, the leader of RN, is currently the favourite to win next May’s presidential election. This is despite an appeal court this week upholding that Le Pen and other party members were guilty of embezzling over €300,000 in EU funds.
If Le Pen wins, Bardella would become prime minister.
Despite Farage repeatedly rejecting Reform being labelled as a far-right party, Bardella’s appearance at the conference represents another example of Reform’s links with Europe’s nationalist and far-right parties.
The RN has similar policies to Reform in some areas, including on welfare services such as housing and non-emergency medical care, which it wants to restrict to French nationals only.
It also wants to put an end to birthright citizenship and require individuals born to foreign parents to apply for it.
The party has also pushed for restricting certain sensitive government and security jobs to French citizens only, barring dual nationals.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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