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| Zia Yusuf resigns as Reform UK chairman | Zia Yusuf resigns as Reform UK chairman |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Zia Yusuf has resigned as the chairman of Reform UK, saying "I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time". | Zia Yusuf has resigned as the chairman of Reform UK, saying "I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time". |
| 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 Sir Keir Starmer to ban the burka. | |
| Reform leader Nigel Farage said he was "genuinely sorry" Yusuf was resigning, describing him as "enormously talented". | |
| Farage said Yusuf was "a huge factor" in the party's success in last month's elections, when Reform won a by-election, two mayoral races and gained 677 new councillors. | |
| "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 social media. | |
| Deputy leader Richard Tice thanked Yusuf for his "major help in securing such progress and success over the last 11 months". | |
| "We would not be where we are today without him," he added. | |
| In a post on X, Yusuf wrote: "11 months ago I became chairman of Reform. I've worked full time as a volunteer to take the party from 14 to 30% [in national polls], 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." | |
| Earlier, Yusuf had criticised Reform MP Sarah Pochin - who won last month's Runcorn and Helsby by-election - for urging Sir Keir Starmer to ban the burka "in the interests of public safety" during her Prime Minister's Questions debut on Wednesday. | |
| He said it was "dumb for a party to ask the PM if they would do something the party itself wouldn't do". | |
| Pochin's call appeared to go down well with Reform's other MPs, although a party spokesman said it was "not party policy". | |
| Yusuf became Reform UK's chairman shortly after last year's general election, after previously being a member of the Conservative Party. | |
| A former banker who sold his tech start-up company for more than £200m, Yusuf has described himself as a "proud British Muslim patriot". | |
| He revealed that he had donated £200,000 to the party during the election campaign. | |
| As chairman, he was given the job of professionalising the party, wooing donors and increasing Reform UK's activist base. | |
| Yusuf was seen as central to Reform's operation and had been leading the party's so-called DOGE teams to cut wasteful spending in the councils it now controls. | |
| The acronyn refers to Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency in the US. |