Blitz Bureau
Zia Yusuf, chairman of Britain’s right-wing Reform UK party, resigned abruptly on June 5 following a row with its newest lawmaker, saying working to get the party elected was no longer “a good use of my time”, reported BBC.
In a post on social media, Yusuf did not expand further on his reasons for stepping down. However, it comes after he said it was “dumb” for the party’s newest MP to call on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to ban the burka. Reform leader and Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage said he was “genuinely sorry” Yusuf was resigning, describing him as “enormously talented”
Reform has overtaken Starmer’s Labour Party in opinion polls as Britain’s most popular political party less than a year after it won five parliamentary seats at a national election. Yusuf, a businessman who is not a lawmaker himself, was made Reform’s chairman last year, as Farage went on a drive to professionalise the party, according to Reuters.
Hours before announcing his resignation, Yusuf, a self-described “British Muslim patriot”, criticised Reform lawmaker Sarah Pochin over her question to Starmer in parliament on June 4 asking if he would ban the burqa garment worn by some Muslim women. Starmer told Pochin in reply that he would “not follow her down that line”, while Reform said shortly after that a burqa ban was not official party policy.
Yusuf’s shock departure comes just days after he shared the stage with Farage and Pochin at a Reform press conference in London, and weeks after he helped the party to a strong performance in local elections and one parliamentary by-election in which Pochin was elected as a lawmaker. The party has seen divisions in its upper ranks before.
In March Reform referred one of its lawmakers, Rupert Lowe, to police over allegations including threats of physical violence against Yusuf. Prosecutors later said they would not bring charges against Lowe, who was suspended by Reform. And in November its deputy leader Ben Habib quit, citing “fundamental differences” with Farage.
