Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf resigns from party

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Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf has resigned from Nigel Farage’s populist party after criticising comments by one of its MPs about burkas, saying that he no longer believes the role is a “good use of my time”.

Yusuf wrote on X: “11 months ago I became Chairman of Reform. 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.”

He added: “I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time, and hereby resign the office.”

Yusuf’s departure came hours after he criticised Reform’s newest MP, Sarah Pochin, for asking the government a “dumb” question about whether it would ban the burka, a type of full-body garment worn by some Muslim women.

Pochin, the MP for Runcorn and Helsby, posed the question to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

“I do think it’s dumb for a party to ask the PM if they would do something the party itself wouldn’t do,” Yusuf said on X earlier on Thursday.

His comments garnered abusive comments on the social media platform, with people referring to Yusuf’s Muslim heritage.

Party leader Nigel Farage said he was “genuinely sorry” that Yusuf had decided to stand down, adding that 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,” he wrote on X.

Yusuf, an entrepreneur and former banker, joined Reform in the summer of 2024 after donating to the party.

He is the latest high-profile figure to leave the party. Farage and Yusuf had a major public battle with one of Reform’s former MPs, Rupert Lowe, which ended in Lowe’s ejection from the party.

Yusuf is currently one of only two directors of Reform UK alongside Farage, according to Companies House.

Yusuf had this week begin spearheading Reform’s efforts to set up a so-called Department of Government Efficiency at Kent county council — modelled on Elon Musk’s cost-cutting outfit in Donald Trump’s administration — and had begun scrutinising the local authority’s contracts.

Nathaniel Fried, the tech entrepreneur Yusuf brought in to work on the Doge programme, also quit.

“Zia brought me and I think it’s appropriate that I leave with him,” he told the FT, adding that he had found the work “horrible” because people were “not very nice to me”.

Political commentator and Reform member Tim Montgomerie said Yusuf’s departure was a “massive, massive setback”.

“I just put my heart out to Zia because this is something he’s committed a lot of time to and he won’t have walked away from it lightly,” he told Times Radio, adding that Yusuf had experienced “quite a lot of personal nastiness on social media”.