ONE of Britain’s leading anti-abortion groups, whose activity was boosted by US Vice President JD Vance, has an all-male board, most of whom do not live in Britain.

ADF UK was founded in 2015 as a conservative Christian advocacy group, with a strong anti-abortion focus. This relative newcomer has grown in influence, thanks to its growing resources: the latest accounts, covering 2023, show its budget has expanded so it now has £1 million a year to spend.

It is the British arm of the US’s Alliance Defending Freedom, a significant player in the US Republican right. The US Alliance Defending Freedom has a seat on the “advisory board” of “Project 2025,” the coalition of big hitters on the US right who created a radical plan of government cuts and politicisation seen as a blueprint for Trump’s presidency.

Alliance Defending Freedom specialises in legal support for “test cases” for Christian right causes: it describes them in terms of “freedom,” claiming they are battles for “religious freedom” and “freedom of speech.” But it backs legal cases to stop abortion rights — one of its cases was key to overthrowing the US pro-abortion legal ruling Roe v Wade — banning same-sex marriages and stopping anti-discrimination laws — so it clearly doesn’t believe in the freedom to have abortions, the freedom to have same-sex marriages, or the right to be free of discrimination.

In Britain, ADF UK backs legal cases against new “no protest” zones around abortion clinics. In his February Munich speech attacking European politics, Vance singled out British laws and prosecutions designed to create these protest-free “safe access” zones around abortion clinics. Vance specifically highlighted cases backed by ADF UK. So the US vice-president backed the British arm of a US anti-abortion group.

ADF UK is growing its British influence by lobbying MPs and organising publicity and legal costs for court cases challenging abortion clinic “safe zones.” ADF also had a speaker at February’s “Alliance for Responsible Citizenship” conference, a big gathering for the “new right” which was also addressed by Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage.

But despite these British successes, ADF UK is not so strongly rooted in Britain. Registered in England as both a company and a charity, ADF UK has five directors. Official records state one of them lives in the US, two in Austria (where ADF has an office) and one in Ireland. Only one director lives in Britain. Seventy-four per cent of its $1m income also comes directly from its US parent.

Strikingly, while most ADF UK public spokespeople are women, all the directors — who legally control the organisation — are men. I asked ADF UK if an anti-abortion organisation being male-controlled was really acceptable, and whether it is a foreign-run organisation interfering in British politics, but received no reply.

Callanan and the crypto cabal

The Tories have taken a big step in breaking down the barriers between politicians and lobbyists by allowing one of their shadow ministers to help run a lobbying firm.

Lord Martin Callanan is a Conservative shadow foreign office minister. He was a business and energy minister under Rishi Sunak. But according to his application to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba), since January 2025 Callanan has also been “senior counsel” with lobbyists Northpoint Strategy.

Northpoint was set up by its chairman, fellow former Tory minister James Wharton, who served under David Cameron and Theresa May and ran Boris Johnson’s 2019 leadership campaign. Northpoint represents some individual cryptocurrency firms and lobbying group the UK Cryptoasset Business Council.

Members of this group include some big crypto firms that have paid big fines: Binance is a member firm. In 2023 Binance paid a $3 billion fine in the US for anti-money-laundering violations. Another member, Coinbase, paid a $100m fine in New York in 2023 for anti-money laundering failures. Last July Coinbase was fined £3.5m in Britain for “weaknesses” in its “financial crime controls” and engagement with “high-risk customers.”

These fines show there is a very real danger cryptocurrency will be involved in corruption. There are also dangers that cryptocurrency can be a poorly understood, destabilising influence on finance and the wider economy. These firms have obvious interests in getting close to politicians.

Acoba was more worried about Northpoint’s involvement with energy and heating firms. Northpoint represents the multi-company Heat and Building Business Council. While an energy minister, Callanan went to two Northpoint meetings organised for energy clients, so Acoba raised more questions about Northpoint being “a lobbying firm and representing clients in Britain’s energy market.”

However, while Acoba pointed to “risks” from Callanan’s access to “privileged information” and his “potential influence,” it accepted Northpoint’s assertion Callanan’s “role will not involve lobbying the British government” and cleared the appointment.

Acoba was reassured by Callanan telling it he was not working on energy for Northpoint, but instead on “tech, AI, blockchain and crypto” and “expanding into the European market.” Acoba only considers his previous ministerial experience, but the fact that he is a current shadow foreign office minister with a commercial interest in cryptocurrency clients building business in Europe seems an obvious conflict of interest.

Follow Solomon on X @SolHughesWriter.