Former Brexit firebrand Nigel Farage has told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that U.S. conservatives need to "save Western civilization."

Farage, who led the UK Independence Party for almost a decade and the Brexit Party from 2019 to 2021 while being a leading Eurosceptic MEP for 20 years, received a standing ovation after telling the Texas conference that its attendees were "foot soldiers in the battle" for the "free world."

"When conservative policies stop being conservative, guess what happens? They lose elections," said Farage, who unsuccessfully stood seven times for election to the UK parliament but won five of his six European election campaigns.

"The opportunity is here in America, because be clear about one thing. To save Western civilization, this is the battleground – because if America falls, we all fall."

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CPAC was once an all-American affair, but some European voices are starting to sing from the same hymn-sheet at the annual get-together of U.S. conservatives.

The first CPAC was held in 1974, with an inaugural speech by Ronald Reagan seen as crucial in his climb to become U.S. President in 1980. Similarly, Donald Trump's 2011 speech to CPAC helped build momentum toward his 2016 election.

But in recent years CPAC has become more international, with conferences held in Japan, South Korea, Australia and Brazil. In May 2022, the first European CPAC was staged in Budapest, with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban calling his country a "fortress of conservative and Christian values."

Orban opened this latest CPAC in Texas by demanding conservatives "take back" institutions in Washington and Brussels from liberals who threaten Western civilization, calling himself "an old-fashioned freedom fighter" and saying Hungary was "under the siege of progressive liberals."

And on Saturday, Farage joined in with a speech entitled 'Saving the West,' in which he appealed to American conservatives to remain strong. 

"I know I'm talking to perhaps the most important group of people that have ever assembled in one room," the broadcaster told the conference. "Because you are the foot soldiers in this battle on behalf not just of America, but on behalf of the whole of the free world to save everything our forebears built, designed and defended against the world.

"The responsibility is yours. Are you ready for that responsibility? Are you going to go out and fight and win? Good, because we can do it. We can do it."