Farage and Truss Hold Private Lunch Amid Tory Turmoil

Published: 24 January 2026. The English Chronicle Desk. The English Chronicle Online

In the hushed, chandelier-lit surroundings of one of Mayfair’s most exclusive private members’ clubs, a lunch took place this week that has sent ripples through Westminster far beyond the dining room. Over steak and chips, with not a leaf of lettuce in sight, Nigel Farage and Liz Truss shared a discreet meal that has reignited speculation about the future direction of Britain’s fractured right-wing politics.

The meeting, held on Monday at Mark’s Club, came at a particularly sensitive moment. It took place on the very day that Robert Jenrick, one of Reform UK’s most high-profile recent defectors from the Conservatives, publicly criticised Truss’s disastrous 2022 mini-budget, describing it as “cackhanded” and suggesting she should have been expelled from the Conservative party because of the damage it inflicted on families and the economy. The coincidence of timing has fuelled intrigue, suspicion and political point-scoring in equal measure.

The lunch was organised by the Heartland Institute, a US-based thinktank known internationally for its strident rejection of mainstream climate science. Photographs from the gathering, briefly posted and then deleted on X by Lois Perry, the institute’s Europe director and a former leader of the far-right Ukip party, showed Farage addressing fellow diners, with Truss seated among them. Though Reform UK was quick to distance itself from the former prime minister, the images alone were enough to raise awkward questions.

Asked whether Liz Truss would ever be welcomed into Reform UK, the party’s press team responded within minutes with an emphatic rejection, insisting she “would not be welcome”. Publicly, at least, Farage’s party appears keen to keep Truss at arm’s length, even as it embraces a growing number of former Conservatives disillusioned with their old political home.

Privately, however, the lunch suggests a more complicated reality. According to one of the roughly 20 people in attendance, Truss appeared entirely at ease in the company. “She is very comfortable in that group,” the attendee said, noting that Truss and Farage share overlapping networks of donors, activists and ideological allies. Both, they added, are close to several of Reform UK’s most significant financial backers.

Speculation about Truss’s next political move has never entirely died down since her dramatic fall from office after just 49 days as prime minister. Despite the chaos triggered by her unfunded tax cuts, she has retained a loyal following on the libertarian right, and Farage himself once described her mini-budget as “the best Conservative budget since 1986”. That endorsement has lingered in political memory, resurfacing now as the right reorganises itself.

The Heartland Institute’s involvement has also drawn attention. The thinktank has a long history of controversial statements on climate change, at times comparing believers in global heating to extremists such as the Unabomber, a comparison widely condemned as both offensive and inaccurate. Its decision to host the lunch, and to bring together figures such as Farage and Truss, underscores its ambition to play a more visible role in shaping Britain’s emerging right-wing ecosystem.

The guest list reflected this ambition. Among those present was the historian David Starkey, who was dropped by his university and publisher in 2020 after making racist remarks, but who has since become a regular presence at Reform UK’s annual conference. Also attending was Mike Graham, a broadcaster who was sacked by TalkTV following an investigation into a racist social media post linked to his account.

Other diners included Alan Mendoza, founder and executive director of the right-leaning Henry Jackson Society, and Lance Forman, the smoked salmon entrepreneur and former Brexit party MEP who was a financial backer of Truss’s Conservative leadership campaign. Forman confirmed that the conversation at lunch touched on Jenrick’s criticism of Truss, but insisted that she was unfazed by it.

“The timing was quite funny, given what Robert Jenrick had said that morning,” Forman said. “I mentioned it to Liz Truss and she was not upset at all. She’s very cheerful and robust. Nigel Farage was one of the people who congratulated her on her budget back then, so it was a ridiculous thing for Jenrick to say.” He described the food itself as largely forgettable, recalling only a set menu and a chocolate mousse for dessert.

Not everyone agrees on Truss’s mood. A report in the New Statesman suggested that she appeared visibly annoyed during the lunch, particularly after Farage left, and complained to other guests about “dark forces” being behind the critical article by Jenrick. Those claims were dismissed by Forman, who portrayed the atmosphere as relaxed and convivial.

Politically, Labour was quick to seize on the optics. A party spokesperson accused Farage of attempting to “reassemble Boris Johnson’s cabinet of failed Tories who broke our public services and hammered family finances”. They highlighted what they described as the hypocrisy of Jenrick attacking Truss in the morning, only for Farage to be seen enjoying a lavish lunch with her later the same day.

“On the same day Robert Jenrick said his old boss Liz Truss should be thrown out of the Tory party,” the spokesperson said, “his new boss Nigel Farage was quaffing champagne and enjoying a lavish lunch with her.” The comment neatly encapsulated Labour’s strategy of linking Reform UK to the turbulence and economic damage of recent Conservative governments.

According to one attendee, hard copies of Heartland Institute publications were circulated at the lunch, and Farage delivered a short speech broadly endorsing the thinktank’s ideas. The guest suggested that some of those positions could eventually find their way into a Reform UK policy platform, should the party move from protest politics towards a more developed programme for government.

The setting itself carried symbolic weight. Mark’s Club, once owned by the late entrepreneur Mark Birley, was sold in 2007 to the hospitality magnate Richard Caring, who also owns the Ivy and Sexy Fish restaurant chains. Among Britain’s right-wing elite, the club is now seen as a less exclusive, more “new money” alternative to 5 Hertford Street, long regarded as the spiritual home of the Tory right.

Mark’s Club has recently undergone a flamboyant refurbishment, featuring oversized oil paintings of dogs, chintzy furnishings and brightly patterned wallpaper. Membership costs £2,750 a year, plus a £1,250 joining fee. By contrast, 5 Hertford Street, owned by Birley’s son Robin, remains more discreet and selective. Truss, it is understood, may not be welcome there, having previously irritated the club’s owners by allegedly wandering its rooms in search of members to recruit for her own rival club nearby, which charges “founding members” an extraordinary £500,000.

Lois Perry, the organiser of the lunch, has herself emerged as an increasingly influential figure on the British right. This week she attended a “Davos alternative” event in Zurich hosted by the Heartland Institute, where Truss was billed as a keynote speaker outlining “a vision for the UK and the democratic west”. The lunch was not the first time Perry has brought Farage and Truss together; both appeared at the launch of the Heartland’s UK chapter last year at Brooks’s, one of London’s remaining gentlemen’s clubs that does not admit women.

Taken together, these encounters suggest that while formal party lines may be drawn sharply in public, the informal networks of Britain’s right are more fluid. Over red meat and political reminiscence, alliances are tested, futures are quietly discussed and old wounds are reopened. For Nigel Farage and Liz Truss, the Mayfair lunch may have been unofficial and discreet, but its symbolism was anything but small.