{"id":185171,"date":"2026-06-30T22:49:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:49:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/185171\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T22:49:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T22:49:29","slug":"israel-spent-50000-lobbying-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/185171\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel spent \u00a350,000 lobbying Reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reform UK\u2019s deputy leader said last week that a parliamentary debate into Israeli influence<\/a> on British politics was \u201cantisemitic in its very motivation and at its core\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs such, we should utterly reject it,\u201d argued Richard Tice<\/a> to a room full of MPs.<\/p>\n

What he did not tell them, however, was that he had been on a trip to \u201cthe Gaza front line\u201d last September funded by the newly-created Reform Friends of Israel<\/a>, where he concluded that the Gaza famine was a \u201cblatant lie<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

And that trip is not the only example of pro-Israel pressure groups working with Reform. Just a few short weeks after Tice\u2019s visit, his chief of staff and a motley crew of Reform figures visited Israel in a trip which has received scant media<\/a> attention<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Their six-day jaunt in November 2025 included a visit to the illegally occupied<\/a> Golan Heights, which the UK recognises as part of Syria.<\/p>\n

They also visited Israel\u2019s police headquarters, which is overseen by far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who is sanctioned<\/a> by the UK for \u201crepeated incitement of violence against Palestinian civilians\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This trip was funded by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, according to newly released Israeli government data<\/a> seen by Declassified and found by Berlin-based journalist Yossi Bartel.<\/p>\n

The records show that the ministry paid Conexi\u00f3n Israel \u2013 a company based in Jerusalem that organises high-level country visits \u2013 more than \u00a350,000 to facilitate the delegation.<\/p>\n

The delegates returned singing Israel\u2019s praises and denouncing British protesters marching against the war in Gaza as antisemitic and \u201cnaively propping up a terrorist ideology\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dr David Bull, then Reform UK party chairman, said<\/a> the trip had been \u201clife changing\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI now understand the situation that Israel finds itself in and Reform UK will always stand with the Israeli people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Andy Kalil, the member of the public who organised the petition that sparked last week\u2019s debate in parliament, said the trip \u201cgoes the heart of why we petitioned for an independent inquiry into pro-Israel influence in UK politics.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA trip funded by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs that exposed participants to the Israeli government\u2019s perspective is clearly a matter of public interest,\u201d he told Declassified.\u00a0<\/p>\n

RELATED<\/p>\n


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\u2018Their fight, our fight\u2019<\/p>\n

In addition to Bull, delegates included Lancashire county council leader Stephen Atkinson<\/a>, London assembly member Alex Wilson<\/a>, and Reform UK board member Gawain Towler<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Both Atkinson and Wilson declared that their place on the trip cost Israel\u2019s foreign ministry \u00a34,861 each.<\/p>\n

Ryan Powell, Tice\u2019s parliamentary chief of staff<\/a> who recently ran unsuccessfully<\/a> as a Reform UK candidate in south London, was also on the trip<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As was Rafaella Stefani<\/a>, another member of Tice\u2019s parliamentary staff. She helped host an event at Reform\u2019s party conference<\/a> where Israel\u2019s deputy ambassador spoke.<\/p>\n

The reason for the visit, according to the parliamentary staff register, was to study Israel\u2019s policing, border security, health service and immigration control.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group visited several locations targeted during the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023, including the Nir Oz kibbutz in southern Israel and the site of the Nova music festival massacre.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt sickens me that something like this could ever happen,\u201d said Wilson, who posted a video<\/a> from where the mass killing took place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt also sickens me that back in the UK, week after week, we\u2019ve seen thousands of people marching to give succour to the monsters who did this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bull wrote<\/a> that the group also met with Tel Aviv\u2019s deputy mayor to discuss \u201cvisa overstayers and asylum seekers\u201d and the Israeli National Police operation headquarters \u201cwhere the very advanced use of technology enables them to act on ALL CRIME\u201d.<\/p>\n

Towler questioned<\/a> how the UK \u201conce a steadfast ally, let relations with Israel collapse into this sorry mess\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter all, their fight is, in many ways, our fight. A fight for enlightenment ideals, international norms, democracy and the rest,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\"\"Reform UK figures outside Israel\u2019s Knesset in November 2025. (Photo: X)<\/p>\n

Rising power<\/p>\n

The cost of the trip represents only a small fraction of an enormous influx of money flowing into Reform UK, particularly from a small group of overseas expats.<\/p>\n

The party raised<\/a> more than \u00a39 million in donations in the first three months of 2026, far more than any other political party and nearly half of total donations raised by all the parties put together.<\/p>\n

Most of the funding came from two crypto billionaires: Christopher Harborne, a British-Thai dual national, and Ben Delo, who is relocating to the UK<\/a> from Hong Kong so he can keep donating to the party after new legislation capped overseas donations from British citizens to \u00a3100,000.<\/p>\n

The party has also held international fundraisers in wealthy British expatriate communities including in the United Arab Emirates<\/a>, and has said<\/a> it will hold ones in Monaco and the US.<\/p>\n

Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu), said the trip was \u201cvery typical\u201d of the Israeli government\u2019s approach over decades.<\/p>\n

With Reform leading in opinion polls, Israel has clearly assessed that the party \u201cwill have a high chance of either forming the next government, being part of that government in a coalition perhaps or being the lead opposition,\u201d Doyle said.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also very much in keeping with the Israeli strategy of reaching out to far-right groups across Europe, in the US and India which \u201chave adopted highly anti-Muslim, Islamophobic positions\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is perfectly standard operating practice to reach out to such groups, build long-term links to try to get them to see the world as one between Israel as a representative of Western civilisation against barbaric Muslim extremists,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

RELATED<\/p>\n


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\u2018Greater scrutiny is needed\u2019<\/p>\n

Kalil said he found the strongly pro-Israel public statements from the delegation \u201cvery concerning\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cDelegates were shown sites highlighting Israel\u2019s security concerns, but not the devastation in Gaza. That\u2019s not a balanced fact-finding visit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Kalil submitted a formal complaint about last week\u2019s debate.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Among his primary concerns, he said in his complaint, was \u201cthe repeated characterisation of the petition, its signatories and several MPs who spoke in support of it as antisemitic.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe debate did little to address fundamental questions relating to lobbying, political donations, parliamentary visits, transparency or influence,\u201d his complaint said.<\/p>\n

\u201cInstead, it demonstrated why many people believe greater scrutiny is necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has asked that the government review whether it met the standards expected of such debates and for it to be rerun.<\/p>\n

In addition to trips paid for directly by the Israeli government, British politicians including Tice have been taken to Israel by Reform Friends of Israel.<\/p>\n

The group is led by Jason Pearlman<\/a>, who until December was a media adviser to Israel\u2019s president, Isaac Herzog.<\/p>\n

Herzog has been found by a UN commission to have incited genocide in Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking from Israel, he told Declassified that he started a conversation with Reform about turning the party\u2019s \u2018Friends of Israel\u2019 group into a \u201cfull-time\u201d organisation while he was still working for Herzog.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did have a dinner with Nigel [Farage] and some key backers,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were able to put seed funding together.\u201d Pearlman refused to say who Reform Friends of Israel\u2019s (RFOI) donors were.<\/p>\n

The Israeli embassy in London and Richard Tice have been approached.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reform UK\u2019s deputy leader said last week that a parliamentary debate into Israeli influence on British politics was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185172,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[669,37,498,14412,55585,55586,95],"class_list":["post-185171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-golan-heights","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-reform","tag-reform-friends-of-israel","tag-richard-tice","tag-syria"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116841504288681067","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185171\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}