Reform Policy Chief James Orr Shared Stage With White Nationalist

Reform UK’s head of policy James Orr spoke alongside a white nationalist politician at a conference in Hungary last weekend (21 March), DeSmog can reveal.

Orr made an appearance at CPAC Hungary, a political festival closely associated with Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement. CPAC has also lent its support in recent years to Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orbán, who is standing for re-election in April.

Orr shared the stage with Estonian politician Martin Helme, leader of the far-right Conservative People’s Party.

Helme has expressed radical, anti-migrant views in the past. In 2013, he said that his immigration policy was “If you’re black, go back,” adding: “I want Estonia to be a white country”.

Asked by DW in 2019 if he had changed his views, Helme said: “No, no,” adding that he made those comments as a “talking head [on] a commentator show… You’re expected to say things in a more upfront way.”

Helme also made a “white power” gesture at his swearing-in ceremony as Estonia’s finance minister in 2019, a role he held until 2021.

At CPAC Hungary – which also featured Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and Argentinian President Javier Milei – Orr and Helme unleashed their anti-immigration views.

Cambridge academic Orr added that Reform’s policy is: “Not only do we have to stop mass migration, we have to start thinking about how we reverse it.”

Reform has pledged to deport all “illegal” migrants, and to restrict the rights of those who have legally settled in the UK by preventing them from remaining in the country indefinitely.

Orr’s appearance at CPAC Hungary will raise more questions for Reform’s leader Nigel Farage, who allegedly directed racist taunts and insults at fellow pupils at Dulwich College during his time at the school. Farage has said that he never abused anyone “with intent”.

Nick Dearden, director of the campaign group Global Justice Now, said that Reform’s strategy “is to foster hatred and sow division, learning from some of the most divisive politicians in the world”.

CPAC Hungary also featured far-right Dutch influencer Eva Vlaardingerbroek, who called for the mass deportation of immigrants from the West, claiming that “Europe is historically a white continent”, that white Europeans are experiencing a “genocide”, and that “we need to reclaim our sovereignty, close the borders, and reverse mass migration”.

Labour MP Clive Lewis said that Orr’s presence at CPAC Hungary “is yet another signal that a coordinated and well-funded global authoritarian right is increasingly advancing itself in plain sight.

“Across Europe, parts of big business are backing authoritarian and hard-right parties. Meanwhile, fossil fuel companies and speculative finance are pushing for weaker climate and labour rules, lower taxes on wealth and profits, and ballooning corporate welfare for sectors like unaccountable big tech.

“This goes far beyond one person at one conference,” he added.

Orr, who was appointed as Reform’s policy chief in February, is a University of Cambridge academic and an influential figure in transatlantic reactionary politics. He is close friends with U.S. Vice President JD Vance, and has been described as his “intellectual mentor”.

Reform’s senior figures, including its leader Farage, deny basic climate science and advocate for the mass expansion of fossil fuel production. The party is heavily funded by fossil fuel interests, climate deniers, and major polluters.

Joe Mulhall, director of research at HOPE not hate, said that Orr “sits at the centre of a web of think tanks and charities within the British far right” and that Reform’s policy chief has “consistently pushed hardline positions despite many still seeing him as merely a conservative academic.”

Orr and Reform did not respond to DeSmog’s multiple requests for comment. Helme said that the allegations against him were “hysterical ranting” but declined to comment further.

Orbán’s Fight for Survival

This year’s CPAC Hungary was an opportunity for Orbán to corral international support for his regime ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections on 12 April.

Trump sent a video message to the conference in which he lauded Orbán as a “fantastic guy” and said that he hopes the Hungarian autocrat “wins big” in the upcoming elections.

However, Orbán is on the brink of losing power for the first time since 2010. According to the latest polls, his party Fidesz is trailing its rival Tisza 30 percent to 46 percent.

Orbán’s authoritarian policies have served as an inspiration for Trump’s second-term agenda, and his government is lauded in far-right circles.

Over the past 16 years, Orbán has rewritten the country’s constitution, seized control of its media and courts, and imposed laws to crack down on the rights of LGBT people, women and girls, and asylum seekers.

Like many of Reform’s key figures, Orr is a vocal supporter of Orbán’s regime.

At a festival hosted by Orbán’s in-house, oil-funded think tank, Orr last year lauded the Fidesz government as a “counterexample to the ideology in my own country that rejects national pride and heritage”.

Both Orr and Helme also used their CPAC Hungary panel to praise Trump for his approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Orr said: “I do see a willingness in the United States to try to find a way to rehabilitate the broken Ukrainian nation – to find a pathway to peace and prosperity, and every time they’ve tried to do that my sense is that they’ve been obstructed by Brussels and others.”

Trump has repeatedly been accused of pandering to Vladimir Putin’s demands in trying to negotiate a peace deal in Ukraine – including reports this week that U.S. security guarantees in the region are tied to Kyiv ceding its entire eastern Donbas region to Russia.

Reform and Farage have attracted criticism for cosying up to Trump and for backing his war in Iran.

Orr has previously been dismissive of the Ukraine war, which has resulted in an estimated two million casualties and at least 500,000 deaths since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Speaking in August 2025, Orr labelled the war a “regional Slavic conflict,” adding that “it is a conflict happening in the world that I don’t care very much about.” 

However, he gave a very different view at CPAC Hungary, calling Putin’s invasion “scandalous” and saying that “in Britain we’re very proud that we welcomed 200,000 Ukrainian refugees.”

Dearden of Global Justice Now said: “Farage’s policy chief sharing a panel with a white nationalist shows just how far Reform is willing to go to gain power. But it also shows their weakness. They know that their policies – from deploying a British version of ICE, to backing Trump’s foreign policy disasters, to ripping up climate action – are not popular here in Britain.”

A version of this article was published by The Mirror.