In February I interviewed Zia Yusuf and he glowed with ambition – not just to put Nigel Farage in Downing Street but to transform Britain. The 38-year-old self-made millionaire was in the process of setting up Reform UK’s new headquarters in Millbank Tower, the legendary skyscraper facing the Thames where Alastair Campbell had plotted Tony Blair’s 1997 landslide.
He talked of how Britain could once again be “one of the greatest countries in the world again”. Mr Yusuf described how when Mr Farage made his shock decision to return to frontline politics ahead of the summer election he spied a “small window of opportunity for something very special to happen”.
He was not a stereotypical Reform activist. He founded the luxury concierge service Velocity Black after working for Goldman Sachs and studying at the London School of Economics.
His parents came to Britain from Sri Lanka in the 1980s – his dad worked as a paediatrician and his mum as a nurse. Such immigration success stories are common among candidates in the Conservative party, but Mr Yusuf embraced Reform as the party which could rescue Britain at a time when the economy is “circling the drain”.
“The reason why I do this,” he told me, “and I do it as a volunteer and I do it with all my time – is because this country has been incredibly kind to me, to my family.”
He argued that Mr Farage could become prime minister if the party won the support of 31% of voters. Today the party is on 30% and the Tories are languishing on 18%.
Since that February interview, Reform has won the Runcorn and Helsby by-election, netted two key mayoralties and secured the control of local authorities following the election of hundreds of councillors. Recent weeks have felt like a democratic revolution.
But on Thursday afternoon he said on X: “I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time, and hereby resign the office.”
The previous day, he made it clear he did not back newly-elected Reform MP Sarah Pochin’s call for the PM to ban the burka.
He wrote: “I do think it’s dumb for a party to ask the PM if they would do something the party itself wouldn’t do.”
Just months earlier he had described Reform gatherings as the “most positive, enthusiastic, uplifting atmosphere you could possibly hope for – more akin to a rock concert, actually, than a political rally”.
He had ambitions for the UK economy “growing at 4-5% every year” and this self-described “British Muslim patriot” had an inclusive vision for the party.
“We’ve just got to be really clear with the British people what we stand for,” he told me. “We stand for family, we stand for community, we stand for country.
“If you believe in those things it doesn’t matter what your background is, it doesn’t matter what your story is, you are welcome here.”
For reasons which may become clear in the near future he has decided his future does not belong in the party. It would be a coup for the Conservatives if he joined their ranks, but in February he had all but written off the Tories.
“The Conservative party has an insoluble physics problem – half of the party are basically Lib Dems and the other half are small-c conservatives, many of whom have values which align well with us,” he said. “So how can you lead such a party?”
And he spoke of Boris Johnson with derision: “I think history will judge him as one of the most damaging prime ministers in this country’s history.
“The word you hear most often from people who support Reform when someone says Boris’s name is ‘betrayal’.”
He described him as “one of the most religiously obsessed net zero fanatics” who “threw open our borders”.
Nigel Farage had warm words for Mr Yusuf, saying he was “genuinely sorry” at his departure.
“Politics can be a highly pressured and difficult game and Zia has clearly had enough,” he added. “He is a loss to us and public life.”
Reform will need a new back office maestro with world-class organisational skills if the party is to fulfil its ambitions of defeating both Labour and the Conservatives at the next election. MPs in the traditional parties of power will desperately hope Reform’s days at the top of the polls are numbered and it is destined for chaos and then obscurity.
But Mr Farage is one of politics’ greatest survivors and he has tapped into the desire of millions of voters for a radical upheaval of the status quo. With or without Mr Yusuf, he will work for that democratic revolution.
