{"id":806950,"date":"2026-07-17T22:11:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T22:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/806950\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T22:11:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T22:11:17","slug":"wouldnt-have-been-my-choice-farage-praises-hanson-but-breaks-with-her-on-right-wing-podcast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/806950\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Wouldn\u2019t have been my choice\u2019: Farage praises Hanson, but breaks with her on right-wing podcast"},"content":{"rendered":"

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London: One Nation leader Pauline Hanson has been backed by British right-wing populist Nigel Farage after they met at a closed-door political gathering also attended by mining billionaire Gina Rinehart.<\/p>\n

Farage, who is leading the polls with his Reform UK party, heaped praise on Hanson for her staying power in politics, but he took issue with her decision to sit down for a podcast with far-right activist Tommy Robinson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"OneOne Nation leader Pauline Hanson with chief of staff James Ashby (left) at CPAC Great Britain 2026.Luca Marino<\/p>\n

Hanson and Rinehart arrived in London to attend the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), where the One Nation leader was given a front-row seat to hear Farage address the summit on Friday afternoon (about 1.30am on Saturday AEST).<\/p>\n

Rinehart joined the gathering, wearing a pink cowboy hat, and met the Reform UK leader backstage to show her support for his plan to slash migration and stop asylum seeker boats.<\/p>\n

After a political storm in Australia over their luxury holiday at a fashion show in Italy in recent days<\/a>, Hanson and Rinehart avoided the media by joining VIP speakers in a closed-off area guarded by security staff.<\/p>\n

\"ReformReform UK leader Nigel Farage speaks at the summit.Luca Marino<\/p>\n

Speaking to this masthead outside the event, Farage criticised the Liberal Party and expressed support for Hanson instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s quite remarkable \u2013 she never goes away, she just keeps on going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s very clever on social media and she got it years ago, in a way that the Liberal Party of Australia didn\u2019t. And I think that slow build has been really, really impressive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Australian Liberal Party has just lost its way completely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Pauline<\/a><\/p>\n

Farage sent a warning, however, over Hanson\u2019s one-hour podcast with Robinson, who is intensely controversial because of his convictions for assault and his history of abrasive commentary against Muslims.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wouldn\u2019t have been my choice,\u201d Farage said.<\/p>\n

Hanson\u2019s opponents in Australia have sharply criticised her decision to talk to Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, and there have been signs of dissent within One Nation over how the podcast came about.<\/p>\n

Hanson\u2019s top adviser, James Ashby, has argued the meeting with Robinson was a suggestion from the Seven Network, which was preparing a report on Hanson\u2019s UK visit, but the TV network rejected this version of events.<\/p>\n

Ashby joined Hanson at CPAC in the front row to hear Farage, alongside Mercedes Schlapp, a speaker at the London conference and a director of communications at the White House during Donald Trump\u2019s first term as US president.<\/p>\n

\"AustralianAustralian billionaire Gina Rinehart in the crowd.Luca Marino<\/p>\n

Hanson also met Matt Schlapp, the husband of Mercedes and the chairman of the American Conservative Union, which runs the CPAC events.<\/p>\n

Farage said his policy plan drew on Australia\u2019s experience in stopping asylum seeker boats under former prime minister Tony Abbott, and he said a Reform government could do the same in the English Channel.<\/p>\n

The key, he said, would be to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights in order to stop challenges to tougher asylum seeker rules.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Hanson\u2019s<\/a><\/p>\n

Hanson was due to give the main address at a dinner on Friday night (early on Saturday AEST) at a five-star hotel near the O2 arena east of London on the Thames River.<\/p>\n

She sat with CPAC chair and former British prime minister Liz Truss at the top table at the dinner, according to a source inside the room, but the event was closed to the press and there was no broadcast of her speech.<\/p>\n

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what\u2019s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\"DavidDavid Crowe<\/a> is Europe correspondent for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.Connect via X<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":806951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-806950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=806950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/806950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/806951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=806950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=806950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=806950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}