Monday night in the Cotswolds village of Dean was one of those perfect August evenings, when the long hot day blurs into a balmy night. At an 18th-century manor house owned by the millionaire couple Johnny and Pippa Hornby, a BBQ was set up and a group of friends – some longstanding, others meeting for the first time –were putting the world to rights over a few beers.
But as the sun set on this intimate gathering, it marked a point where something was happening that we may look back on as a tipping point in British politics. Because sitting around the picnic table were US vice-president JD Vance, Cambridge academic James Orr, Tory MP Danny Kruger and the reality TV star Thomas “Bosh” Skinner.
On one level, this head-scratching meeting between a man who could be the next leader of the free world, a divinity professor, a shadow minister and a market trader with a conviction for handling stolen goods was a social affair: a coming together of those who see the world through the same lens. Yet there is something more significant going on: around that table was the consolidation of British rightwing politics through the common language of Maga-style Republicanism – the language, to borrow from the title of a widely quoted speech Orr gave in 2023, of faith, family, flag and freedom.
Vance’s summer trip to the UK was not really a break: from his official stay with David Lammy at Chevening to tea with top Tories arranged by George Osborne and breakfast with Nigel Farage, Donald Trump’s deputy was constantly on the go.
But the barbecue was a different sort of meeting. Kruger told The Observer that Vance personally invited the trio for what was “a convivial dinner with him and his family. Obviously we discussed politics, but it was a social evening.”
At first glance, the guests had little in common: although Vance is close to Orr – sometimes described as the vice president’s “philosopher king” – and has known Kruger since he endorsed the MP’s book in 2023, this was his first meeting with Skinner.
But the ideological ties run deep, and, as a key figure in the new wave of politics infused with religion flowing from one side of the Atlantic to the other, Orr is central to understanding them.
As well as being associate professor at Cambridge University’s faculty of divinity, Orr is UK chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation, a rightwing US thinktank that organises the National Conservativism (NatCon) conferences. He won a double first in classics at Oxford, claims to play the bagpipes better than Alastair Campbell and tells the Times “toxic femininity is a thing, as much as toxic masculinity”.
A London NatCon event in 2023 featured speeches by Suella Braverman and the commentator Douglas Murray, who was heavily criticised on that occasion for saying nationalism shouldn’t get a bad name because “the Germans mucked up twice in a century”.
Last year’s star NatCon attraction in Budapest was Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán. The chairman and founder of the NatCon movement is Yoram Hazony, author of 2018 book The Virtue of Nationalism. Vance has been a regular speaker at NatCon conferences in the US, including last year’s in Washington DC.
Skinner, who last week was named as a contestant on Strictly Come Dancing, made his name on The Apprentice but has more recently found fame on social media praising his family, flags and fry-ups, as well as President Trump, and ending every post with the signature sign-off “bosh”. Vance has previously called Skinner a friend and urged him to “hang in there” after Skinner claimed he was receiving death threats from “people on the left”. It was their online interactions that prompted the invitation, Kruger says: “JD just thought he was a great personality.”
Skinner has also spoken at one of Orr’s events. The Telegraph reported that Orr called him “every day for six weeks” until he agreed to appear, giving a patriotic speech alongside the shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, Kruger and the one-time Reform MP Rupert Lowe. Orr and Jenrick were among those to post fawning selfies with Skinner, hoping some of his social media stardust would rub off on them. In an exchange posted on X about the rise of tool theft, Jenrick even attempted a “bosh” of his own.
Orr and Kruger share another connection: both sit on the advisory board of ARC, the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, another global network that says it draws on the west’s “moral, cultural, economic and spiritual foundations” in order to “re-lay the foundations of our civilisation”. Other board members include Paul Marshall, co-owner of GB News and recent purchaser of the Spectator, Murray, the manosphere author Jordan Peterson and podcaster Konstantin Kisin, who recently claimed Rishi Sunak wasn’t English.
‘Orr’s sympathies are with Reform but I share a lot of the same agenda at the level of ideas and policy’
Danny Kruger, Tory MP
But Orr, who did not respond to requests for comment, is more than a conservative events coordinator: this year he was named chairman of the advisory board of Resolute 1850, a thinktank set up with the aim of helping Reform win the next election.
In the process of rebranding itself as the Centre for a Better Britain (CFABB), the group was founded by Reform donors including David Lilley, a metals trader and hedge fund manager who has given Farage’s party more than £300,000, and is based in the same building as Reform HQ.
In a leaked presentation seen by The Observer, CFABB declares the two-party system is “dead” and the Tory party in “terminal decline”. It says the Labour government is “failing”.
It also criticises most rightwing thinktanks, with the exception of the Prosperity Institute, otherwise known as the Dubai-based, Brexit-backing group Legatum, which Orr is also involved with. CFABB and Prosperity – which has previously donated to Kruger's family values-focused New Conservatives – are already holding biweekly meetings as they “prepare for 2029”.
The thinktank’s social conservatism is clear: “We begin from the premise that any positive vision must be grounded in the continuities of our nation, its culture, Christian heritage and freedom of speech,” its presentation says. In February Vance claimed free speech was under attack in the UK as a result of buffer zones banning protesters around abortion centres.
CFABB is a limited company set up as a thinktank, but with broader ambitions. According to its presentation, the group aims to raise almost £25m including from donors in the US, which it plans to spend on policy formation, identifying candidates and hiring advisers and spokespeople for Reform or a possible merged Reform-Tory party.
The budget for this year alone is £2.5m, and includes an official launch scheduled for September – around the same time as Reform’s party conference. But CFABB is not just seeking UK money. As well as registering as a UK company, in March it was incorporated in Texas as a tax-exempt organisation. CFABB’s presentation also says it has Canadian charity partnership status. Its fundraising targets appear in both pound and dollar denominations.
The Observer understands that the Electoral Commission has spent the past six weeks assessing whether CFABB may have breached electoral law.
Jonathan Brown, the thinktank's chief executive and former Reform chief operations officer, told Sky News that CFABB currently had no US donors and that “most” of its fundraising had been secured domestically, although he was open to donations from across the Atlantic.
Money may not yet be filtering through from the States, but ideas certainly are.
“There is a broad sympathy between the JD Vance part of American politics and where we are,” says Kruger. “He is socially conservative, but also future oriented: he has his roots in Silicon Valley, so he is interested in tech and the future, but he is also concerned about the social underpinnings of society – societal breakdown, community cohesion, immigration. We in the UK are having similar conversations.”
While some of his colleagues are looking to put distance between themselves and the Reform ecosystem, Kruger is ambivalent. “[Orr’s] sympathies are with Reform but I share a lot of the same agenda, and we are talking at the level of ideas and policy – which party happens to own the conversation is secondary. I often find myself in agreement with what Reform are saying – they are, of course, Conservatives at heart.”
What defines a Conservative in the 2020s and beyond is up for debate. After a series of prime ministers with wildly varied political philosophies, the party was hollowed out by last year’s disastrous election result. The long-held view that Britons would never tolerate a US approach to politics – one that permeates sex lives, religious views and personal choices – is shifting. The conversation around that Cotswold picnic table is already working its way to dinner tables around the country.
The Maga-isation of rightwing politics did not start last week, but it has taken a big leap forward.
Bosh! Fame gamer turns influencer
Thomas Skinner
A one-time market trader with a conviction for handling stolen goods, Thomas Skinner first entered the collective consciousness in 2019 as a larger-than-life contestant on reality TV show The Apprentice. Last week it was announced that he would be joining another BBC series as a Strictly Come Dancing contestant this autumn. He has built a social media following of more than 400,000 with regular video posts extolling the values of his family, his country and implausibly large breakfasts at his local greasy spoon, each of which is signed off with his catchphrase: “Bosh!”
But as his invitation to join JD Vance last week demonstrates, Skinner’s appeal – and ambitions – are not restricted to light entertainment. In June, after weeks of being pestered by Reform-boosting academic James Orr, he joined the line-up for Orr’s Now and England conference alongside the likes of the shadow minister Robert Jenrick and one-time Reform MP Rupert Lowe, where Skinner delivered a nostalgic speech praising England’s past – and decrying its present.
In subsequent write-ups, he was frequently singled out as the best speaker at the conference. And those who joined him also sensed something special about Skinner and his metaphorical coat-tails - Orr and Jenrick were among those to post fawning selfies with him, hoping some of his social-media stardust would rub off on them. In an excruciating exchange posted on X about the rise of tool theft, Jenrick even attempted a “bosh” of his own.
Skinner is also building his own special relationship with Maga Republicans. A couple of weeks ago, Vance replied to one of Skinner’s posts claiming he was receiving death threats from “people on the left”, describing the father-of-three from Ilford as as “my friend” and urging him to “hang in there”.
As fellow cookout attendee Danny Kruger put it, Vance is drawn to Skinner because “he is a very positive, no-nonsense guy who loves his country, loves his family and is an optimist – a conservative optimist , which we don’t have enough of.”
Photographs by Danny Kruger, Karwai Tang/WireImage