Reform UK’s top media presenter has worked for a Chinese state propaganda channel within the past year, the Guardian can reveal.
Ray Addison, who presents the political party’s in-house podcast and social media campaigns, fronted films about Xinjiang province – where the Chinese government is accused of committing genocide – for state media in September 2025.
In the videos, entitled Raymond’s Xinjiang Stories, some of which praise Chinese infrastructure, Addison described himself as a CGTN correspondent. The series was made after Addison left GB News in 2024, where he had worked as a news presenter and reporter.
Xinjiang province has attracted international attention because of alleged human rights abuses against the region’s Muslim Uyghur population by the Chinese state, including claims of forced labour, sterilisation, re-education and mass surveillance.
Addison’s work for China contrasts with the hard line Reform has taken on Chinese issues ranging from industrial relations to suspected Chinese state espionage within Westminster.
In a social media video posted by GB News in January, Nigel Farage said of the UK’s relationship with China: “I’m very, very nervous about the extent to which China has effectively spied on us, stolen many of our industrial secrets. I’m worried about the extent to which they’ve infiltrated, using money, British universities. We must be cautious about the relationship.”
The videos presented by Addison for CGTN are publicly available on YouTube and carry a warning stating that “CGTN is funded in whole or in part by the Chinese government”.
CGTN lost its licence to broadcast in the UK in 2021 after the regulator Ofcom determined it was ultimately controlled by the Chinese Communist party.
US goverments under both the previous Trump and Biden administrations have formally described China’s actions against the Uyghurs and other ethnic groups in the province as genocide. The UK government has not made a formal declaration but has noted concerns about alleged human rights abuses in the region. In 2021, British MPs voted to declare that China is committing genocide against the Uyghur people in Xinjiang.
Suella Braverman, now a Reform MP, has also made public statements to this effect. On 14 January 2025, before she defected from the Conservative party to Reform, she posted on X: “China is committing genocide in Xinjiang, funding Putin’s war of aggression in Europe and has committed acts of cyber-terrorism against the British people.”
Addison is paid by Reform to produce content about the party and creates social media videos as well as presenting its The Reform UK Podcast. In recent days he has fronted the party’s social media promotion of its conference, which is being held in Birmingham.
The party has sought to capitalise on Farage’s fanbase by advertising its podcast on the basis of exclusive interviews with the party leader and other senior party figures.
Several countries have banned or limited imports of Chinese cotton from Xinjiang because of allegations that the regime uses Uyghur slave labour to process the material.
In one video posted on YouTube in September 2025, which appears to be filmed in Xinjiang, Addison describes the “gorgeous [cotton] fields all around me” and in solely favourable terms describes how technology is being used to boost cotton yields. He adds: “Xinjiang’s cotton story is no longer just about scale, it’s about transformation.”
Reform’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, has said the party was concerned about a range of behaviour by the Chinese Communist party, including its threat to Taiwan.
“We are very anxious about multiple areas of what China is doing, and I think we need to be much stricter on it,” he told a podcast last year. Tice went on to say that the last Conservative government had been “too permissive” of China and called for the west to make it clear to China it would “come down like a ton of bricks” both militarily and economically.
Iain Duncan Smith, one of a number of British MPs and peers targeted by Chinese sanctions, criticised Reform’s engagement of Addison. “There is a question of what due diligence will have been carried out. Everything in China is controlled by the state and if you have someone who has been employed by state media then that means they will have been employed by the state,” he said.
Reform was aware of Addison’s work for a Chinese government-controlled media outlet before he was appointed. A spokesperson did not answer specific questions about its vetting process.
A Reform spokesperson said: “Reform UK stands by its critical comments regarding China. Ray has worked for a number of British media outlets such as GB News. He has had a successful career in journalism all over the world. Ray Addison has never tried to hide where he has worked, it’s all over the internet and easily found with a Google search.”
