Reform UK was hoping for another good day in their seemingly inexorable rise in British politics. A by-election for the Scottish Parliament is taking place in Hamilton, with voters already heading for the polls in what could be a breakthrough moment for Nigel Farage north of the border.
Polls suggest Reform will push Labour into third, in a race most thought would be a two-way fight between the SNP and Keir Starmer. This confidence has now been thrown into question, however, by the intervention of Reform UK’s chairman Zia Yusuf over the new row about banning the burqa. It stems from PMQs yesterday, when the newest Reform MP Sarah Pochin used her first ever question to call for the Muslim headdress to be banned on security grounds.
Her call was backed by Lee Anderson, the party’s own Chief Whip, as well as receiving encouraging words from Nigel Farage on his GB News show.
However almost immediately after PMQs a Reform UK spokesman got in touch to confirm that banning the burqa is not party policy.
Then this morning Mr Yusuf once again entered bull-in-a-china-shop mode and threatened to usurp party stability.
He tweeted: “I do think it’s dumb for a party to ask the PM if they would do something the party itself wouldn’t do.”
Having your party chairman brand your newest – and only woman MP – as “dumb” does not strike me as the sort of behaviour expected from the man brought in by Nigel Farage to lead a ‘professionalisation’ operation.
Once again this absurd scene will cast doubt in voters’ minds about whether Reform really is a viable option for Government.
The great irony is that Nigel Farage, who loves Donald Trump, has cast Zia Yusuf in the same role the US president gave to Elon Musk.
Mr Yusuf claims that when Ms Pochin asked her question he was in fact busy working on his council DOGE project, rooting out taxpayer waste.
Mr Musk soon found himself dispensed with by the President, partly due to his incessant and controversial tweeting that was making unnecessary enemies at home and abroad.
Will Zia Yusuf merely get a strict talking to? Or could he also follow Mr Musk’s exit from the project he clearly believes so strongly in.
