The Vance guard: the new right being cooked up in the Cotswolds

The vice-president shared BBQ and beers with allies whose thinktank has come to the attention of the Electoral Commission.

- Catherine Neilan

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 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 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 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 and has known Kruger since he endorsed the MP's book in 2023, this was his first meeting with Skinner.