Nigel Farage’s campaign against the World Health Organization (WHO) is moving to the US with a new board of lobbyists, raising questions over why the Reform UK leader is involved in an American pressure group.
The Action on World Health campaign, co-founded by Farage, is relocating to the US state of Delaware as a charitable foundation and grassroots non-profit.
As part of its relaunch, it has hired Farage’s longtime friend and Brexit campaigner Andy Wigmore for its board, alongside Gerry Gunster, an American lobbyist and political strategist who worked on Farage’s leave campaign for the 2016 EU referendum.
Andy Wigmore. Photograph: Future Publishing/Getty Images
Farage is the honorary chair of Action on World Health, which is pushing for the replacement of the WHO, an organisation it claims is too close to China, “compromised by private funding” and “far left”.
The decision to move the campaign to the US and solicit donations in dollars comes after Farage has spent a substantial amount of time there since becoming an MP in July 2024, making at least 10 trips to the US in that time.
The pressure group’s website is now appealing for donations by payment card or US bank account and has a website form for people from around the world to email their politicians to speak out against the WHO, although it does not include an option for people from the UK to email their politicians.
Under Donald Trump, the US has already left the WHO, which coordinates global responses to pandemics and other health threats.
Action on World Health has other London-based board members including Amanda Moslé Friedman, a US businesswoman and associate of Farage who works for the nuclear technology company IP3, and Greg Swenson, the chair of Republicans Overseas UK.
In 2024, the Guardian revealed Action on World Health had links to the nicotine industry. Its other co-founder is David Roach, a Reform UK local election candidate, whose company previously provided secretariat services to the Global Initiative on Novel Nicotine, which advocated for nicotine pouches and other products. Roach’s company also lobbied on behalf of a vaping company called ANDS.
In the Action on World Health “manifesto”, released before the UK election in 2024, it opposed “excessive regulation” on vaping. It said: “Adults should be treated like adults, instead of the WHO bullying countries into treating its citizens like children through excessive regulations on food, alcohol, fizzy drinks, and vaping products that are 95% less harmful than smoking.”
Roach, asked about his clients at the time, said no vaping or novel nicotine companies were providing funding to Action on World Health, and that David Roach Consulting was not being paid for its services to the organisation. He said Action on World Health did not have a public list of funders because that would breach confidentiality.
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Farage launched the group in May 2024, and his unpaid role at the organisation was belatedly declared to the MPs’ register of interests later that year.
The WHO has previously accused Action on World Health of spreading misinformation about its international treaty designed to improve global pandemic preparedness.
A spokesperson for the campaign group Spotlight on Corruption said: “This shows how urgently stricter rules on MPs’ second jobs and side hustles are needed. It is disappointing that there has been so little progress on this so far despite this being a major manifesto commitment.”
Action on World Health, Reform and Roach did not respond to a request for comment on the group’s relocation.
