Zia Yusuf has announced he is resigning as chairman of Reform (presumably effective immediately), 11 months after appearing out of nowhere to take on the job.
In a post on X, Yusuf gave the official reason for his departure: “I’ve worked full time as a volunteer to take the party from 14 to 30 per cent, quadrupled its membership and delivered historic electoral results. I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time, and hereby resign the office.”
Reform descended into internal fighting this week over the maiden question of its newest MP. At PMQs on Wednesday, Sarah Pochin asked Keir Starmer: “Given the Prime Minister’s desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he in the interests of public safety follow the lead of France, Denmark, Belgium and others and ban the burqa?”
As I wrote at the time, her intervention – reviving a debate that hasn’t been topline political news for around a decade – took the Commons (and the Prime Minister) by surprise. It seems it also caught her own party off-guard, with Reform hastily clarifying that banning the burqa was “not party policy” – although Nigel Farage suggested there should be a public debate on this issue.
Yusuf, however, seemed to offer a much more blatant slap-down, tweeting this morning “I do think it’s dumb for a party to ask the PM if they would do something the party itself wouldn’t do”.
It is not clear if his criticism of Reform’s fifth (and only female) MP is the reason for his swift departure. But there have been tensions surrounding Yusuf and his meteoric rise from political outside to chairman of Reform for some time. He was not a former councillor or MEP, but a businessman without any experience in party politics. His arrival coincided with the removal of Reform’s co-deputy leaders, Ben Habib and David Bull, which caused considerable internal backlash. Other personnel decisions (sackings) soured the mood further. Habib quit the party a few months later, and has been highly critical of both Farage and Yusuf’s leadership since.
Then came the row over Rupert Lowe earlier this year. As with Yusuf’s departure today, Lowe’s removal from the party over accusations that he had bullied staff was swift and ruthless. Both Lowe and Habib have been scathing about how the situation was handled, with Habib accusing Reform of becoming “the Nigel dog-and-pony show” and suggesting Yusuf was enabling the destruction of the grassroots movement by ousting someone like Lowe.
Neither of them wasted any time in celebrating his departure. “Thank goodness Zia Yusuf resigned,” wrote Habib within minutes of the announcement. Lowe’s Twitter response was longer. “The question is – how did a man with no political experience be given such vast power within Reform?” he asked – a question Westminster watchers have been wondering since July. He accused Yusuf of deploying “woke lawfare” against him (a reference to the continuing row over the exact situation regarding his expulsion), continuing “Yusuf was the driver, but he was given the keys by Farage”.
Keen Reform followers will remember that the Lowe situation exploded after the Great Yarmouth MP appeared to criticise Farage’s leadership of Reform and suggested in not-so-subtle terms that Farage sees himself as “the Messiah”. Did Yusuf suffer a similar fate after criticising Pochin, the party’s newest MP? Or was there something else going on behind the scenes making the timing coincidental?
(Not everyone in Reform seems thrilled about Pochin, incidentally – there were some fascinating facial expressions from those onstage when she opened Reform’s big press conference last week. This is a party that doesn’t easily tolerate rising stars.)
Farage is keeping his cards close to his chest – for now. Unlike with Lowe, there has been no open criticism of Yusuf. “I am genuinely sorry that Zia Yusuf has decided to stand down as Reform UK Chairman,” Farage tweeted. “As I said just last week, he was a huge factor in our success on May 1st and is an enormously talented person. Politics can be a highly pressured and difficult game and Zia has clearly had enough. He is a loss to us and public life.”
Then again, such public magnanimity may be a reward to Yusuf for leaving with grace (in contrast to Lowe, whose anti-Farage campaign continues).
All this comes on the eve of a potentially huge electoral upset. By tomorrow we’ll know if Reform’s efforts to change the political weather in Scotland have paid off, when the result of the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election come in. If Reform is able to scrape even a second-place finish, it will set the agenda for politics north of the border for the next year. This clearly isn’t the best time for a personnel row. As one former Reform member put it: “Two words: shit show.”
[See more: Who will win the Hamilton by-election?]
Content from our partners
Related
