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I have been living in Abu Dhabi for almost 10 years. But before coming to Abu Dhabi, I had worked and lived in Sharjah for many years. I had left Sharjah a decades ago, but
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The old world is over. This is Nigel Farage’s time. That’s the message pressed by the Reform UK leader and his allies who are betting that the powerful brand of populism that drove his successful Brexit campaign a decade ago can carry him all the way to 10 Downing Street. “The world is changing,” Farage told Reuters as Reform starts fleshing out its party’s proposed policies, which include carrying out mass deportations, ditching international human rights treaties and slashing overseas aid. He contrasted the comparatively warm welcome he’d received at the annual gathering of political and business leaders in Davos this year with the hostility he recalled in the past. “I would say a third of the delegates I met there were genuinely interested in who I was, what I was, what I was trying to do,” he added. “And next year it will be 50%.” Reform is riding high in UK opinion polls, with a significant lead over Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s governing Labour. The support has bolstered Farage’s case that the party, which has existed in its current form for five years, could win power at the next election, due by 2029. Farage said Reform’s plans would rip up what he sees as the orthodoxy of a liberal establishment responsible for “a progressive, woke ideology” that has left Britons ashamed of their country. He compared himself to his friend Donald Trump, as well as Hungarian leader Viktor Orban and Argentina’s Javier Milei, as figures bringing “very, very big changes” to the world. Traditional politicians are being left in the dust, Farage said in an interview at the launch of Reform’s manifesto for Wales in the city of Newport on March 5. “Keir Starmer is stuck in a mindset that is 15 years out of date,” the 61-year-old added. While Farage is a highly divisive figure in Britain, his campaigning and political acumen have seen him forge, from the crucible of the 2016 Brexit referendum, one of the most potent of the patriotic populist movements sweeping the globe. He and Reform nonetheless face a stiff challenge to convince voters they are ready to lead the country, having little prior experience of government and counting only eight lawmakers in Britain’s 650-seat parliament. Inflammatory rhetoric, such as talk of an “invasion” of illegal migrants, as well as allegations of racism that have led to several members being ejected, have turned off some voters who fear a Reform government would stoke division. A former leader of Reform in Wales was also jailed in November for taking bribes to make pro-Russian speeches, offences condemned by the party as “reprehensible, treasonous and unforgivable”. “Reform’s biggest strength is also its biggest weakness - namely, Nigel Farage,” said Tim Bale, professor of politics at London’s Queen Mary university. “He’s adored by those who are absolutely determined to vote Reform but hated by those determined to vote against it - and disliked and distrusted by far too many who might otherwise be tempted to move in its direction.” Reform’s growing policy list, compiled here by Reuters from public statements and conversations with Farage and 10 current and former advisers, also includes plans to scrap diversity initiatives and net-zero targets, maximise oil and gas production, take the axe to Britain’s civil service and transform the country into a crypto hub. Critics have described the agenda, which Reform says should be a fully developed policy platform by the end of the year, as little more than an echo of the programme pursued by the US Trump administration - a characterisation that Farage rejects. Reform’s policies are underpinned by “simple values”, Farage said, focused on “family, community, country”. Labour has long accused the party of flip-flopping on issues including Britain’s public health service. “Reform don’t have a proper policy platform. Their ideas don’t make sense,” a Labour official said. FARAGE ‘HAS INSTINCTS NOT IDEOLOGY’Like their boss, Farage’s advisers often speak in epochal terms about the sweeping away of liberal elites clinging onto the “rules-based international order”. “You need to be asking: What is your new destination?” said Alan Mendoza, Reform’s chief adviser on global affairs. “Because the old, the old world, has gone. It’s over.” The party’s new head of policy, James Orr — a philosophy professor at the University of Cambridge and friend of US Vice-President JD Vance - spoke of Farage’s ability to connect with voters. “I’m hesitant to use the word philosophy about Nigel,” the 47-year-old told Reuters at a private members’ club in London’s wealthy Mayfair area. “He has instincts, not ideology.” Orr’s dismissal of elites stems from bruising experiences around the Brexit referendum, which saw Britons vote to leave the European Union by 52% to 48%. When doing post-doctorate research at the University of Oxford in 2016, he describes being the “only out-of-the-closet Brexiteer” among academics at his college. By contrast, his stance was backed by “the porters, the butlers, the maintenance department and the gardeners and the groundsmen”. Farage has indeed branded himself a man of the people leading a people’s revolution. Despite his euroscepticism, it was in Brussels that he met two of his biggest political influences — Beppe Grillo, the comic who co-founded Italy’s anti-establishment 5-Star Movement, and his social media guru Roberto Casaleggio. “Grillo weaponised social media and Nigel gets it,” said a former adviser who has been close to Farage since the beginning of his political career and requested anonymity to speak freely. “For a man who has never really turned on a computer in his life, he really gets it.” The main opposition Conservative Party, like traditional rival Labour, dismisses the idea of Reform coming up with coherent policymaking. The Conservatives have been outflanked by Farage on the right, losing many voters to Reform and seeing some of their most high-profile figures defect. “Reform are not serious people and they are not going to solve any of your problems,” Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch told a party forum on March 7. “Reform have absolutely no idea what they want Britain to look like in the 2030s.” FARAGE ON TRUMP AND MAGAReform figures also stress their close relations with American decision-makers could prove an asset in government. “With this administration, I happen to know most of the members of cabinet on a personal basis and have for many, many years,” Farage told Reuters. He said he agreed with Trump on big issues, such as global security, recognising “Iran is the bad actor in the Middle East” and understanding “China wants to take over and dominate our lives”. On controlling borders and producing energy at home, he added, the pair are aligned. Farage bridles, though, when asked whether he is copying Trump’s MAGA movement. “To some extent they copy what we were doing back in the run-up to the referendum,” he said. “I have always gone for bells and whistles and fireworks and fun, and whilst we believe in what we’re doing, we have a good time as well.” Orr, Reform’s policy chief, said Vance “hates what the technocrats and the elites have unleashed on Europe and Britain” and the US simply wants Europe to stand on its own two feet on security. One source with knowledge of Reform’s operations said officials close to Farage often visit Washington to try to raise money and drum up business support for the party. The officials are targeting those British businesses and business owners that oppose the UK tax regime and have largely quit the nation, the source told Reuters on condition of anonymity to speak freely. They hold dinners and events to draw people in and attend conferences to target “high earners” who have moved abroad. That strategy helped Reform raise 5.5mn pounds ($7.3mn) in the fourth quarter of last year, taking the party’s total take of cash donations to 18mn pounds in 2025, according to Electoral Commission data. At least two-thirds of that money, which dwarfed Labour’s 8.1mn pounds, came from donors who live abroad, the data shows. Mendoza, Reform’s global affairs adviser, said Britain must prove its utility to Washington, investing “serious money into defence” and showing “you’re willing to play a larger role”, if it wishes to maintain a serious security relationship. That would combat what he said was a belief in the Trump administration that Britain was “a weak and feeble country”.
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The scale and duration of this month’s energy and inflation shock are still guesswork. But global investors are clearly reluctant to throw in the towel on stocks and bonds, despite the Iran war and a dour first quarter for returns. Two basic factors explain the relative resilience of financial assets during a turbulent March. The first is simply that history suggests these conflicts and related oil supply disruptions are often temporary. If you think this one will be too, you keep close tabs on the themes that were booming beforehand — an artificial-intelligence frenzy and brisk earnings and GDP growth. A second is that world stock markets have endured long periods of crude prices above $100 a barrel before without collapsing — unless there were related sharp rises in interest rates, as in 2022, or a bigger financial crisis in the background, as in 2008. Of course, relying on history repeating itself could be an epic miscalculation. Energy experts are insistent that the Gulf’s critical Strait of Hormuz has never been effectively closed to oil shipments before. Around 20% of world oil and liquefied natural gas supply has been blocked after Tehran effectively locked down Hormuz. Nobody knows how this pans out or how long it lasts. Iran’s trump card in this existential battle for its leadership is the oil shock itself - spreading the costs of war across the Gulf and the rest of the world, targeting energy and shipping to raise the price of escalation until pressure for a deal builds. The real danger is not the oil price itself but what it does to inflation — and therefore rates. But, oil prices aside, the year’s scorecard for financial markets as we near the end of the first quarter gives little sign of the seismic geopolitics of the past three months. Gold’s 15% year-to-date gains appear to reflect the anxiety, but it’s done little or nothing since the Iran attacks on February 28. Other traditional “havens” such as US Treasuries are flat, and typical “safety” trades like German bunds or Japan’s yen are slightly in the red for the year. Previously outperforming asset markets got sideswiped by Iran this month, though many remain well ahead for the year. South Korea’s Kospi stock benchmark has had a wild ride - surging almost 50% for the year at one point, only to halve that before recovering to stand some 40% ahead for 2026. Similarly, emerging-market stock indexes have lost 4% this month, but remain up 6% for the year. Japan’s Nikkei followed suit, with a hefty 8% loss this month that still leaves it up 5% for 2026. Europe and US equities are marginally in the red in the first quarter overall. The dollar has been one of the very few global prices to rise in March, enlivening an otherwise flat year. So what should investors do? Citi Wealth’s Chief Investment Officer Kate Moore advises holding your cards on a running assumption the conflict ends within weeks — even while acknowledging the risks to that view. What you don’t do is switch back and forth on the frenetic headlines, Moore and her team told clients — advising them to keep a six-month horizon on yourdashboard. “Investors should remain focused on long-term positioning rather than attempting to trade short-term market moves.” HSBC Private Bank’s CIO Willem Sels talks of building portfolio resilience with a plan to “diversify our diversifiers across sectors, geographies and asset classes” and avoid being swayed by “excessively pessimistic or exuberant narratives.” Also keeping tuned to a six-month horizon, Sels reckons a picture of impressive global growth, AI and overall earnings endures - even as the interest rate cycle turns and the Federal Reserve is done easing. Avoiding concentration and dollar risk may mean spreading exposure beyond American assets - something that could weigh on the dollar in turn. For all investors, though, the time factor on the Iran war remains the game changer. A conflict measured in months rather than weeks may be enough to upend all the resilience you can muster.
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Cuba is preparing to receive its first shipment of Russian oil this year, just days after the government announced it was operating on natural gas, solar power and thermoelectric plants as severe power outages continue
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WARSAW: A generation ago, Poland rationed sugar and flour while its citizens were paid one-tenth what West Germans earned. Today its economy has edged past Switzerland to become the world's 20th largest with over $1
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Angela Rayner's tilt at the leadership is a reminder to Sir Keir Starmer that there is a lot for him to do on the domestic front. In her most critical intervention since leaving the cabinet
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Proposals to prohibit federal immigration agents from masking their faces have gained new life in states — thanks in part to a court ruling that blocked the nation's first such law, in California. A little
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Anuj Drivas, Agence France-PresseA deluge of weight loss drugs is set to transform the global fight against obesity as India prepares to unleash low-cost generic versions of injections like Ozempic after a key patent expired
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While growing up in 90s I got to watch films like “Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayeinge,” “Baazigar,” “Darr,” “Kuch Kuch Hota Hai,” “Saudagar,” “Baghban,” “Aankhein,” and “Dil.” I remember almost every films of 90s were peppered
