diff --git a/.gitlab-ci.yml b/.gitlab-ci.yml
index 44aa2ed00c..bb38d67548 100644
--- a/.gitlab-ci.yml
+++ b/.gitlab-ci.yml
@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ checkpatch:
   stage: test
   script:
     - date '+%Y%m%d-%H%M%S'; dnf install -y git
-    - date '+%Y%m%d-%H%M%S'; contrib/scripts/checkpatch-feature-branch.sh 2>&1 | tee checkpatch-out.txt
+    - date '+%Y%m%d-%H%M%S'; NM_CHECKPATCH_FETCH_UPSTREAM=1 contrib/scripts/checkpatch-feature-branch.sh 2>&1 | tee checkpatch-out.txt
   allow_failure: true
   artifacts:
     when: on_failure
diff --git a/contrib/scripts/checkpatch-feature-branch.sh b/contrib/scripts/checkpatch-feature-branch.sh
index 0f37728d9f..72e5903dae 100755
--- a/contrib/scripts/checkpatch-feature-branch.sh
+++ b/contrib/scripts/checkpatch-feature-branch.sh
@@ -15,6 +15,12 @@ if printf '%s' "$HEAD" | grep -q '\.\.'; then
 else
     BASE_REF="refs/remotes/origin/"
 
+    if [ "$NM_CHECKPATCH_FETCH_UPSTREAM" == 1 ]; then
+        git remote add nm-upstream https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.git
+        git fetch nm-upstream || die "failure to fetch from https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.git"
+        BASE_REF="refs/remotes/nm-upstream/"
+    fi
+
     # the argument is only a single ref (or the default "HEAD").
     # Find all commits that branch off one of the stable branches or master
     # and lead to $HEAD. These are the commits of the feature branch.