Try though he might, “7 Days” hitmaker Craig David never managed to pack as much into one week as Reform UK’s former chairman Zia Yusuf.
Nigel Farage’s major donor and head of the party machine launched UK Doge – styled on Elon Musk’s government efficiency body – last Monday; denounced Kent County Council’s spending on Tuesday; got into a row on Wednesday; quit as Party Chairman on Thursday; was dismissed as a “control freak” by fellow Doge member Arron Banks on Friday; then was welcomed back to the fold on Saturday. Presumably, as the song format requires, he chilled on Sunday.
Given Banks declared that “the corks will be popping in party HQ” over Yusuf’s departure on Friday, it’s not clear if they managed to jam them back into the bottles the following day. But it does seem that a degree of internal truce has been restored to the insurgent party currently leading in the polls.
Certainly Farage is back on his relentless campaign trail, speaking in Cardiff yesterday at the launch of Reform’s push for next year’s Welsh Parliament elections.
The potential consequences of the falling-out with Yusuf shouldn’t be misread. While the timing coincided, this isn’t like the explosive breakdown of the relationship between Donald Trump and Musk (despite the Doge tribute act).
Yusuf has been important to the development of Reform, and was their largest donor for the 2024 general election campaign, but he doesn’t have the public profile or name recognition enjoyed by Musk, nor the personal following. And even now, his and Farage’s relationship is better than that between Trump and his former “First Buddy”.
Reform is also fortunate that it has been working to broaden its donor base beyond reliance on one backer, aided by their growing electoral momentum. Even had it lost its Chairman permanently, the party wasn’t at risk of being unable to pay its bills.
Internal dramas with Yusuf – or previously with Rupert Lowe, the MP from whom Reform removed the whip in March – generate media gossip but still haven’t prevented their rise in the polls, nor their strong showing in recent by-elections. Farage is still in charge, things are going well for them, and that combination of certainty and optimism is attracting new donors.
There is more mileage in the idea that this latest spat offers their opponents something to critique about the leader. If the brand of Nigel Farage and the brand of Reform UK were illustrated as a Venn diagram, they would simply be a single, perfect circle – no party in modern British history has been as closely and wholly identified with the person leading it.
This is one reason why the other parties continue to search for ways to land a glove on Farage himself. That hunt has been largely fruitless over the years, both because he is a very experienced politician who has been scrutinised this way for decades, and because he has always claimed to be authentic rather than perfect.
The Lowe and Yusuf fallings out perhaps offer a small crack in that armour. When Farage famously said after losing Lowe that “I don’t fall out with anybody – they fall out with me”, it was a rare mis-step, because he sounded more like a politician than his usual comfortable tone of anti-politics.
Students of Ukip’s history will be aware that rifts were part of its culture. Someone I know who spent some years working for that party used to joke that they should install blood-coloured carpets in their HQ to save on cleaning bills, given the regularity of factional in-fighting.
Such is the nature of small parties and fringe movements – the People’s Front of Judea and the Judean People’s Front always loathe one another more than any big players do.
square KITTY DONALDSON Reform 'wildfires' can be put out by Labour - for now
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Their one reliable motto through those lean years was simple: “NAW: Nigel Always Wins”. And so he did – outmanoeuvring his rivals with the rulebook and the backing of the grassroots, until he was big enough simply to leave and launch his own party. He did so to escape the encumbrance of those he once described as “total amateurs who come to London once a month with sandwiches in their rucksacks, to attend NEC meetings that normally last seven hours”.
However, Farage and Reform UK are neither small nor fringe any longer. They’re the only party getting more than 30 per cent in the polls, winning Westminster by-elections and plotting to win a chunky share of seats in Holyrood and Cardiff next year, as the next step in their push to take Downing Street.
This is why spats like that with Yusuf matter. Not because the relationship is too valuable, not because Yusuf is too popular, and not because they need his money – but because the drama doesn’t fit with what they need to do to take their party to the next level.
What does winning power actually mean? It means winning 326 seats at the next general election, with a slate of prospective cabinet ministers who are sufficiently plausible candidates to run big organisations and get the job done. It means, in a crucial break with his past, Farage’s party becoming more than its leader.
Those potential candidates are watching on closely – they are tempted by the possible opportunity, but they are also wondering if this is worth giving up their time, disrupting their careers and businesses, and risking their reputations for.
Interpersonal drama, like last week’s Yusuf row, is a source of worry for them. Perhaps that’s why, for the first time ever, Farage has forgiven the sinner and welcomed him back to the fold, rather than purging him like so many before.
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