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When President Donald Trump threatened to sue the BBC for $1 billion over its edit of his speech from 6 January 2021, when thousands of rioters descended on the US Capitol building, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage immediately took to his show on GB News to defend the President.

Describing the BBC's edit of his speech as "totally outrageous" he told his viewers that "I spent a few minutes with him [the US President]… And his basic thought was, 'Is this how you treat your best ally in the world?' And I get it."

Six months earlier, under chandeliers and American flags at a Florida Republican fundraiser, Farage grinned for the cameras as he shook the hand of a convicted 6 January rioter - a man once photographed stealing Nancy Pelosi's lectern.

At the time, it was widely reported that Farage had missed PMQs to attend the event. Byline Times can reveal that the photo captured more than a moment. It marked the meeting point of two movements - Donald Trump's Project 2025 machine in the United States and a rising populist right in the UK.

The same pro-Trump political operative who arranged Farage's Florida appearance later brought his network to London, launching a new lobbying vehicle aimed at exporting Trump's evangelical Project 2025 agenda across the Atlantic, and working secretly to support Farage.

It was in March 2025, at a glitzy fundraising event hosted by the Florida Republican Party in Tallahassee, that Farage posed for a photograph shaking hands with a convicted 6 January 2021 rioter. The event - a Florida Republican 'Disruptors Dinner' fundraiser whose VIP tables sold for $25,000 apiece - featured the Reform UK leader as the man who delivered Brexit.

Seven months later he belatedly registered receiving a fee for the "speaking engagement" from a company called Imperial Independent Media LLC (IIM), operating from Washington but registered in Alaska. His parliamentary register shows three installments totalling £25,972.

By failing to declare the payment at the time, Farage had breached parliamentary rules. He conceded that his Florida visit should have been declared earlier and apologised for the "error".

By the time he disclosed the fees in October, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards had already opened a probe into the late registration.

The name of the paying company barely registered in Westminster. In Washington, however, it can be found in Justice Department files as the vehicle of a registered foreign agent - Zachary G. Freeman - whose clients include foreign political parties, a pro-Putin Balkan government, and a London policy organisation led by a former Conservative Cabinet minister.

Byline Times can reveal that Farage's benefactor is a pro-Trump political lobbyist embedded in the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 ecosystem - the US conservative plan to dismantle climate policy, rights for women and ethnic minorities, and democratic safeguards. He also has ties to evangelical groups in the US with a history of anti-LGBTQ and anti-abortion activism - and appears to be working actively with Farage to bring this Project 2025-style ideology to Britain.

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In the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election, Zachary Freeman worked with the Heritage Foundation's State Department planning team in Washington DC. The group's work fed into Project 2025.

Project 2025 was a 900-page policy manual produced by the Heritage Foundation under its 'Mandate for Leadersh...