Farage and Badenoch battle for Meloni's favor in bizarre rightwing courtship

On Monday, the Times published a story that would set off a chain reaction of denials, counter-claims, and increasingly frantic posturing among Britain's rightwing political elite. The article alleged that during a recent meeting in Rome, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni had advised Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch against striking a deal with Nigel Farage to unite the right. Within hours, the claim was retracted. Reform UK lodged complaints, Meloni's team reportedly objected, and the Times amended the piece to remove the offending assertion entirely.

What followed was a peculiar spectacle of two rival British politicians—Farage and Badenoch—each scrambling to prove they had Meloni's favor, as if her blessing mattered more than the actual state of their domestic political standing. Badenoch had returned from Rome buoyed, posting a selfie with Meloni on social media alongside effusive praise for the Italian leader's "straight-talking, no-nonsense" style. But the retraction and subsequent row seemed to deflate her triumph. A source close to Badenoch told the Guardian the whole episode was frustrating—Reform, they said, was simply "picking up on crossed wires and desperately trying to make it a thing."

Farage and his allies seized the opening. Robert Jenrick, a former Conservative frontbencher now sitting as a Reform MP, stood at a press conference and mocked Badenoch's embarrassment, offering sardonic advice: don't visit a foreign leader and then fabricate what they said. Farage himself piled on, noting pointedly that he had seen no direct quote from Meloni herself—only Badenoch's account of what Meloni had supposedly said. The Conservative Party hit back, accusing Reform of "peddling conspiracy theories" and attempting to distract from what they called Reform's "fishy £5m donation scandal."

Meanwhile, Meloni's office issued a carefully neutral statement: she "did not enter and does not want to enter into domestic political dynamics and relations between British parties." Yet sources close to Farage claimed she had called him this week to apologize for any confusion and to congratulate him on his recent victory in the Clacton byelection—a contest won against an opponent who had literally dressed as a bin. If true, the gesture suggested Meloni was at least willing to smooth things over with the Reform leader.

Why the scramble for Meloni's affections? She has become something of a star on the global right. The Italian populist, who swept to power in 2022 on a platform of anti-migration and social conservatism, has since moderated her approach and accumulated considerable political capital. Her government is on track to become Italy's longest-serving single administration in the republic's history by September 4th and leads in polls ahead of next year's election. She has topped power rankings in Forbes, Time magazine, and Politico. To many on the right, she represents something rare: a female leader who achieved power against the odds and has managed to hold her government together through turbulent times.

Raheem Kassam, a former Farage adviser and owner of the US politics website the National Pulse, offered insight into why rightwing figures admire her. He noted that Meloni has fostered a relationship with Farage since 2016, and that politicians including Donald Trump and Farage respect her for her toughness and conviction. "When we were first meeting with Meloni in 2016, everyone said the Italians will never accept a female prime minister," Kassam said. "But she just went for it and did it anyway." He suggested that figures like Badenoch could learn from Meloni's ability to hold a government together and get things done.

Yet Meloni has shown she is not easily managed or flattered. She recently had a public falling out with Trump after he claimed she "begged" for a photograph with him at the G7 summit. Rather than accept the slight, Meloni posted a furious video response, hissing: "Neither I nor Italy ever beg." The two clashed again after Trump criticized Pope Leo XIV, calling the pontiff "WEAK on Crime and terrible for Foreign Policy" following the pope's public disapproval of Trump's Iran war. Meloni, a Catholic, said Trump's comments were "unacceptable" and defended the pope's right to call for peace and condemn war. Yet none of this has deterred Farage from cultivating his relationship with her. A Reform source said simply that if Trump has an enemy, Farage does not expect everyone else to make them their enemy too.