Zia Yusuf’s shock resignation as Reform UK chairman and apologetic return after just two days has provided a telling insight into the challenges facing Nigel Farage’s insurgent party.
The departure was initially framed by some as yet another example of Farage falling out with a senior party colleague – a recurring theme in his career – with political opponents claiming it exposed his inability to build a team.
The fact that Yusuf is back on board undermines that critique a little. But it does not mean the problems that his sudden exit highlighted have gone away. The affair has exposed an underlying conflict within Reform and how Farage is having to grapple with potentially explosive issues connected to race and religion.
How divisions inside Reform were exposed
Yusuf’s resignation arrived against a backdrop of an internal party row over a demand to stop women wearing burkas. Last week, Reform’s newest MP, Sarah Pochin, took the opportunity of her first question at Prime Minister’s Questions to ask Sir Keir Starmer whether “in the interests of public safety” he would “follow the lead of France, Denmark, Belgium and others” by banning the burka.
New Reform MP Sarah Pochin (Photo: Ben Whitley/PA)The next day, Yusuf, who is a Muslim, posted on X that it was “dumb for a party to ask the PM if they would do something the party itself wouldn’t do”. The controversy – and the move by other Reform MPs to row in behind Pochin – seemed to play a part in triggering Yusuf’s resignation later that day, although he subsequently insisted the “poor decision” was the result of “exhaustion”.
It has certainly thrown divisions in Reform and among the party’s wider supporters on multiculturalism – and the place of Islam in 21st century Britain – into sharp relief.
Farage offers more nuance on Islam
Reform UK’s leader appears to have been on a journey when it comes to his own thoughts on Islam. In the wake of the Islamist terrorist attack on Westminster in 2017, Farage spoke of immigration creating what he claimed was a “fifth column” within European countries.
In an interview in May last year, he also claimed that there was a “growing number of young people in this country who do not subscribe to British values, [who] in fact loathe much of what we stand for”.
Asked whether he was talking about Muslims, he responded “we are”, pointing to a survey by the Henry Jackson Society suggesting that British Muslims were more likely to have a positive than a negative view of Hamas.
But in a podcast last November, Farage presented a more nuanced view, saying that British Muslims were “more concerned” about extremist Islamists than other Britons. And referring to the growth in Britain’s Muslim population, he said: “If we politically alienate the whole of Islam, we’ll lose.”
Tommy Robinson – real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – following his release from prison, after serving a sentence for contempt of court. Farage has said: ‘I have a very long history of not wanting… Robinson involved in my political ventures’ (Photo: PA)Farage has also gone out of his way to distance himself from anti-Islam figures such as far-right activist Tommy Robinson – real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. When the MP Rupert Lowe was kicked out of Reform, it was over allegations of bullying – vehemently denied by Lowe. But supportive comments which he had made about Robinson had also contributed to tensions with Farage.
Commentators have seen the changed tone on Islam as part of a wider strategy by Farage, since the general election, to move closer to the centre ground. Reform’s huge local election gains and polling lead suggests it is paying off.
Ban on ‘anti-British’ burka not a priority
At a press conference on Tuesday to unveil Reform’s new chairman, David Bull (Zia Yusuf has been given a new role as head of the party’s anti-waste “Doge” unit), Farage’s more nuanced approach was back on display.
In response to a question from The i Paper, he said that banning the burka was not a priority for Reform: “If [the row] highlighted anything it highlighted, what are the priorities?… What is in the shop window, as opposed to what’s there in the rest of the store?
Farage with new party chairman David Bull during a press conference in Westminster this week (Photo Jeff Moore/PA)“I think what Zia felt was, you know, we’ve got a cost-of-living crisis, a looming energy emergency, more boats coming across the Channel than we’ve ever seen before, lawlessness in London and all of our other major cities, be that knife crime, gang crime, you name it. There are many, many other priorities okay?”
But the leader also offered support to Pochin, saying there was a debate to be had about the burka as part of a wider ban on face coverings, highlighting the masked protesters who had met him during a campaign visit to Scotland last week.
“Do I think in cultural terms, the burka fits in with the British way of life?” he added. “Not really, no.” And in response to a later question, he said: “I don’t like to see the burka… it probably is anti-British.
“If these women are being – I mean, maybe they’re volunteering to do it, I don’t know – but if they’re being forced to cover up, that is not a good and positive thing. But is it absolutely front line and centre of what we’re going to campaign for? Not given the other major crises we face.”
‘Reform have a really delicate line to walk’
Luke Tryl, the pollster and director of the More in Common think-tank, believes that the most telling feature of the Yusuf episode was “the fact that [Reform] made such strides to get Zia back”. Farage has condemned the racist and anti-Muslim abuse which Yusuf has received from hard-right accounts on social media, many of whom celebrated the news of his resignation.
Zia Yusuf, Reform’s ex chairman, has been subjected to anti-Muslim abuse on social media (Photo: Anthony Devlin/Getty)Tryl said that Farage’s decision to quickly welcome Yusuf back into the fold in defiance of such voices showed how “serious” he was about trying to enter Downing Street.
On the burka row, Tryl added: “Reform have a really delicate line to walk on this stuff. Lots of people who back [Reform] back them because they’re concerned about issues around integration and want to see that done better,” however, only a minority of the party’s supporters are “actively hostile to the idea of multi-ethnic Britain”.
The polling expert said that when the public are asked what reservations they have about voting Reform, the issues which most frequently come up are Farage’s support for Donald Trump and the inexperience of the party, but also cases of “racism amongst Reform candidates”.
At the general election, Reform had to drop a number of candidates for racist social media posts, and a canvasser for the party was filmed making racist remarks about Rishi Sunak and calling Islam a “cult”.
Active prejudice against Islam ‘won’t wash’
Tryl added “Anything which looks like active prejudice won’t wash, particularly with [Reform’s] new voters.”
He thought this explained Farage’s relatively circumspect approach to the burka debate. While polls have found that a majority of the British public support banning the garment, Tryl said voters “don’t view these instances in isolation”. “If it looked like it was becoming a war on Muslims, I think that would deter a lot of people,” he said.
But Pochin’s decision to raise the burka in the first place suggests there are elements within Reform and its base who hunger for a more forthright approach to such issues. One Reform councillor The i Paper spoke to said they supported banning the burka because Islam was not the religion of the “native land”, and they would not “dream” of telling people in Arab countries what they should wear.
Lowe and other individuals who have previously been involved with Reform exemplify the more hardline approach on cultural issues which some activists hanker for. On Monday, Lowe held a debate in Westminster Hall on banning halal slaughter, which he referred to as a “vile” practice which “would turn the stomach of any decent person”.
He later berated his former Reform MP colleagues on X for failing to turn up to the debate, saying “if we don’t use our position to resist such savageness, even if it results in being called ‘Islamophobic’, then what’s the point in being elected at all?”
Reform accused of ‘lacking courage over the burka’
Ben Habib, Reform’s former deputy leader who quit following a disagreement with Farage, told The i Paper that the burka row had revealed the “lack of political philosophy in the party”.
“The problem with the burka is not a matter of security, which is how Sarah Pochin phrased her question,” he said. “They don’t have the courage to actually explain what it is that genuinely troubles them about the burka. They’d rather go for something that they think mainstream media and the commentariat at large would find less offensive, which is to cite security issues.
“The real issue with the burka is that it reveals the challenges that multiculturalism has created within our communities.”
Reform’s former deputy leader Ben Habib campaigns in Wellingborough last year before he left the party in November (Photo: Martin Pope/Getty Images)Habib said he fully supported freedom of religion but that Britain had a “Christian constitution” and “we’ve got to make the case for our history, our culture and our Christian traditions”. He added: “We’ve got to convince [immigrants] that if they come to this country, they have to adopt our customs and our culture.”
Tryl predicted that similar controversies to the burka row would flare up over the coming years, with Farage likely to face further pressure on such issues from a vocal section of Reform’s base. “Maybe about a fifth of Reform support at the moment is much more actively hostile to the idea of multi-ethnic Britain and Islam in particular, and they will make a lot of noise,” he said.
While the decision to bring Yusuf back was a statement of intent from Farage that he is “not going to be led astray by those siren voices”, Tryl said there was still “a real danger for Reform, because if they become the image of Reform, the public are going to go, ‘I don’t like that.’”
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He went on: “It’s a huge challenge. Reform’s online fringe are more extreme than the online fringe of other parties, but it’s not dissimilar to the challenge that other parties face, in the sense that their most active base is way out of line with public opinion.
“We are in the era of ‘Farage’s choice’,” he said. The leader could either challenge the views of a “more extreme element and build a 30 per cent, 35 per cent, 40 per cent [vote share] party”. “Or he plays to his comfort zone, in which case Reform stops being a serious content of the Government.”
While Farage could try to avoid such controversies by insisting on relentless message discipline from Reform’s elected representatives, this does not sit easily with his freewheeling style. Asked on Tuesday whether the real story of last week was that he temporarily lost control of Reform’s narrative and needed to show more of an “iron fist”, Farage was adamant.
“No, there won’t be an iron fist! They’re grown-ups, let them get on with it… If they wildly contradict something that I think, then I might say something.
“Have we all forgotten the House of Commons is a debating chamber?”
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