Nigel Farage joins Sarah Palin and the big beasts of the US right

Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA gun lobby, will also appear alongside the Ukip leader

Nigel Farage (EPA)

He may be wedged between a star-turn speech by the former US vice-presidential hopeful, Sarah Palin, and a gathering billed as the National Rifle Association’s “Good Guys Reception”. But when Nigel Farage speaks tonight at a conference of hard-right Republicans he is expected to tell them that unless they reclaim their party they “might have to do a Ukip”.

The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is regarded as a calendar highlight for Tea Party, anti-abortion, pro-creationist, and anti-homosexual activists.

In the ironically-named Gaylord National Resort in Maryland, near Washington DC, the Ukip leader has been given a super-star build-up. PR agents promoting the event have described him as a “political tour de force” who has “emerged as a serious and viable candidate who can run England in the near future”.

Ukip’s London office are being careful about what Mr Farage will say in Washington, admitting only that he will give a “personal” speech. However, those organising the CPAC event have given him equal billing among some of their leading figures.

Farage will share the main platform with Palin, the former Alaska governor who remains the darling of the Tea Party wing of the GOP, despite her widely-derided role in serial Republican election failures. The Ukip leader will also appear alongside Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who wants Republicans to “prioritise” ending state-funded healthcare, and Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association, who after one of the recent multiple killings in the US, said: “The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.”

LaPierre’s NRA is said to have been influential in preventing President Barack Obama in 2012 from forcing through new gun controls.

Recent appearances on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News network have given Mr Farage a small US fan base and his conference invite shows a growing recognition of him on the US extreme right.

Although Farage is on record stating that he intends to adopt a relatively low-key campaign strategy ahead of May’s general election, when he will contest the South Thanet seat, this US jaunt is an indication that he potentially harbours international statesmanship credentials.

Mr Farage told one CPAC organiser that he had been delighted to receive the invitation to an event attended by “freedom-loving individuals”. He is understood, however, to have been warned by his aides to avoid the conference’s more controversial topics.