“It doesn’t look very professional, does it, for your chair to be in – then out – then back in again?”,
Reform’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice endured a gruelling and humiliating interview with the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, after his party chair, Zia Yusuf, dramatically resigned, only to reverse his decision within 48 hours.
Yusuf, handed in a dramatic resignation on Thursday, saying that he no longer thought getting a Reform government elected was a “good use of my time”. That came after he said it was “dumb” of a new Reform UK MP to ask the government if it intended to ban the burqa.
However, within 48 hours he reversed his decision, saying “the mission is too important” and that he “cannot let people down”.
Yusuf said that his initial decision to resign was “born out of exhaustion”, and added: “I know the mission is too important and I cannot let people down.
“So, I will be continuing my work with Reform, my commitment redoubled.”
Yusuf will be leading the UK’s DOGE team – a reference to the Department of Government Efficiency which was headed up by Elon Musk in the US.
Appearing on BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Tice was told that the whole episode looked rather ‘chaotic’.
“It doesn’t look very professional, does it, for your chair to be in – then out – then back in again?”, asked Kuenssberg.
“The reality is Zia Yusuf has done a brilliant job,” Tice replied.
Kuenssberg replied: “It doesn’t look like to the public that you really know what you’re doing if you have on one day the guy who was the chair of the party who says it’s ‘not worth his time’ campaigning for a Reform government, and two days later, he’s back in.
“Doesn’t it look chaotic?”
“No, we know exactly what we’re doing, we’re leading in the national polls,” Tice said.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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