Nigel Farage’s party is reshaping British conservatism and showing that it can raise money to do so.
Britain’s populist party, Reform U.K., was expected to bring in more than $1.25 million dollars at a glitzy fund-raiser on Tuesday, a party official said, an extraordinary amount for a party that six months ago was on the fringe of national politics.
The big-ticket, American-style event was the first major fund-raiser since Nigel Farage took over as party leader and his ideological ally, Donald J. Trump, returned to the White House.
Mr. Farage wants to remake British conservatism, just as Mr. Trump has in the United States. He has pushed the movement to the right with a nationalistic platform that is anti-immigrant and anti-regulation.
For a party that raised less than $200,000 in all of 2023, the turnaround since Mr. Farage became its leader last year has been remarkable. Riding a populist wave that has been felt from Germany to France to Washington, Mr. Farage has catapulted his party from a political sideshow to a well-funded force.
Mr. Farage arrived at Oswald’s, an exclusive members-only club in London’s Mayfair neighborhood, Tuesday and hurried out of the drizzle, past a scrum of journalists. Oswald’s is owned by Robin Birley, a major Reform donor.
The Duke of Marlborough, Charles James Spencer-Churchill, followed shortly behind. Arron Banks, who bankrolled the Brexit campaign, also attended, as did Lady Victoria Hervey and Holly Valance, the former pop star and actor who is married to Reform’s treasurer.