{"id":387652,"date":"2026-01-24T08:38:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T08:38:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/387652\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T08:38:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T08:38:07","slug":"red-meat-no-lettuce-nigel-farage-and-liz-truss-attend-private-lunch-after-week-of-tory-defections-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/387652\/","title":{"rendered":"Red meat, no lettuce: Nigel Farage and Liz Truss attend private lunch after week of Tory defections | Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"

If it was on the menu, a side helping of lettuce never made it to the table. Over blood-red steak and chips, Nigel Farage<\/a> and Liz Truss came together on Monday for a discreet lunch at a swish Mayfair club, organised by a climate-denying US thinktank.<\/p>\n

Lois Perry, a former leader of the far-right Ukip party who is now Europe director of the Heartland Institute, posted photographs, now deleted, on X of Farage addressing others, including Truss, at the meal.<\/p>\n

While Reform UK<\/a> appears to be keeping the former prime minster at arm\u2019s length publicly, despite welcoming other former Tories, the gathering at Mark\u2019s Club organised by the Heartland Institute raises potentially fresh awkward questions for the party.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiz Truss would not be welcome in Reform UK,\u201d the party\u2019s press team replied within seven minutes of being asked by the Guardian if the party would ever allow the UK\u2019s shortest-serving prime minister into its ranks.<\/p>\n

The former Conservative housing secretary Robert Jenrick, centre, defected to Reform UK on 15 January. Photograph: Jacob King\/PA<\/p>\n

Yet speculation has persisted about the next moves of Truss, whose mini-budget was described by Farage as \u201cthe best Conservative budget since 1986<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is very comfortable in that group, a lot whom hang out together, and both she and Nigel are clearly close to a lot of the same people, including some of Reform\u2019s biggest backers,\u201d said one of the other 20 or so people who attended.<\/p>\n

The thinktank they were lunching in aid of has made some extreme and incorrect comments on the climate. In the past, it has compared people who believe in global heating to the Unabomber, the US terrorist jailed for killing three people and injuring many others.<\/p>\n

Those present included David Starkey, the historian dropped by his university and publisher in 2020 over racist remarks<\/a>, who has become a favoured guest at Reform\u2019s annual conference, and Mike Graham, the broadcaster sacked from Rupert Murdoch\u2019s TalkTV<\/a> after it said he had failed to cooperate with an investigation into a racist post that appeared on one of his social media accounts.<\/p>\n

Others included Alan Mendoza, a founder and executive director of the right-leaning Henry Jackson Society thinktank, and Lance Forman, the smoked salmon mogul and former Brexit party MEP who gave financial backing to Truss\u2019s Tory leadership campaign.<\/p>\n

Lance Forman, seen here in 2016, said he spoke to Liz Truss at the lunch about Robert Jenrick\u2019s criticism of her mini-budget and she was \u2018not upset at all\u2019. Photograph: Graeme Robertson\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was basically about climate change,\u201d Forman told the Guardian when asked about the lunch, which happened to take place on the same day that one of Reform\u2019s newest recruits, Robert Jenrick<\/a>, had claimed he told Kemi Badenoch to kick Truss out of the Conservative party because of her \u201ccackhanded\u201d mini-budget.<\/p>\n

A report in the New Statesman<\/a> has suggested Truss spent the lunch visibly annoyed about Jenrick\u2019s attack on her and her record in a piece for the Times and, after Farage\u2019s departure, she complained to other guests that \u201cdark forces\u201d were behind the article.<\/p>\n

However, Forman said: \u201cThe timing of it was quite funny because of what Robert Jenrick had said that very morning. I was talking to Liz Truss and we mentioned it \u2013 she was not upset at all. She is very cheerful and robust.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a ridiculous thing for Jenrick to have said, actually. He said it on the back of her budget and Nigel Farage was one of those who congratulated her on her budget.\u201d He said the food on offer was an \u201cunmemorable\u201d set menu featuring a chocolate mousse for dessert.<\/p>\n

Labour seized on the presence of both Truss and Farage, with a spokesperson claiming that Farage is \u201chellbent on reassembling Boris Johnson\u2019s cabinet of failed Tories who broke our public services and hammered family finances\u201d.<\/p>\n

They added: \u201cOn the same day Robert Jenrick said his old boss Liz Truss should be thrown out of the Tory party because of the damage she did to families, his new boss Nigel Farage was quaffing champagne and enjoying a lavish lunch with her.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hard copies outlining the views of the Heartland Institute were also passed around at the lunch, where one diner said Farage gave a short speech that endorsed the institute\u2019s ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s likely that some of the things they are calling for will end up in a Reform programme for government,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n

Once owned by the entrepreneur Mark Birley, Mark\u2019s Club was sold in 2007 to Richard Caring, who also owns The Ivy and Sexy Fish restaurant chains, and is seen by the rightwing elite as a new money establishment with a less exclusive membership list than in its storied past.<\/p>\n

The club recently had a migraine-inducing makeover, stuffed with chintzy furnishings, gigantic oil paintings of dogs and brightly patterned wallpaper. Membership of Mark\u2019s is \u00a32,750 each year plus a \u00a31,250 joining fee.<\/p>\n

The home of the Tory right is now unanimously understood to be 5 Hertford Street, which is owned by the late Mark Birley\u2019s son, Robin. Truss may have struggled to secure a booking at this club; she is understood to have irritated its owners<\/a> by wandering the premises in search of members to poach for her own rival club just one street away, which asks \u201cfounding members\u201d for an eye-watering \u00a3500,000.<\/p>\n

While a much more fringe figure, Perry too has increasingly been working to establish herself as a major player on Britain\u2019s new right. She spent much of this week<\/a> in Zurich at a \u201cDavos alternative\u201d, run by the Heartland Institute, where Truss was billed as a keynote speaker, opining on \u201ca vision for the UK and the democratic west\u201d.<\/p>\n

The lunch was not the first time Perry has brought Truss and Farage together. Both graced the launch of the Heartland\u2019s UK chapter at a glitzy party last year, held at Brooks\u2019s private members club \u2013 one of the few remaining London gentlemen\u2019s clubs that does not admit women.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If it was on the menu, a side helping of lettuce never made it to the table. Over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387653,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-387652","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}