The right-wing party has lost at least 67 candidates since May 2025,
Reform’s Zia Yusuf went into a bizarre meltdown when appearing on the BBC after being asked about the number of controversies surrounding Reform candidates.
A significant number of the party’s candidates have made the headlines for all the wrong reasons, with their past social media posts being exposed for racism and bigotry.
The right-wing party has lost at least 67 candidates since May 2025, according to Lib Dem peer and polling expert Mark Pack.
In the last week alone, one Reform candidate was pictured giving a Nazi salute, while Chris Parry, who was set to stand in a 2028 mayoral election, compared a Jewish community group to “Islamists on horseback”.
Farage had pledged to professionalise his party’s vetting processes, however the latest incidents show that Reform is failing on that front.
Appearing on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Yusuf, Reform’s spokesperson for Home Affairs, was asked about Reform’s candidate scandals.
Kuenssberg asked: “Why does it keep happening?”
Yusuf replied: “Laura, Reform has vetted over a thousand candidates over the last couple of years.
“Even if our success rate is 99.9%, a handful will slip through.”
Yusuf then went on a bizarre rant, attacking the BBC. He said: “Yes, of course it’s reasonable to hold Reform to account.
“But what consistently happens is the BBC pounces on every single Reform mishap and gives it vastly disproportionate coverage in your news cycles – and completely ignores the far most voluminous misdemeanours and frankly egregious things from other parties do.”
However, Kuenssberg hit back: “No, proportionally, Reform has lost more candidates over this kind of thing happening than other political parties.”
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
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