Zia Yusuf, a self-made billionaire and Muslim, has resigned as chairman of Reform, breaking with Nigel Farage just weeks after delivering unprecedented success for the party in local elections.

Yusuf announced his sudden departure on social media platform X, saying he no longer believed “working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time”.

Having been one of the party’s largest donors, Yusuf was appointed to the role less than a year ago and has widely been credited as the power behind Reform’s professionalisation. He is said to be the driving force behind growing its national infrastructure and membership, which now stands at around 235,000.

Yusuf’s resignation post came a few hours after another, in which he referred to a question posed in the House of Commons by new Reform MP Sarah Pochin as “dumb”.

Pochin had used her first chance to speak in the Commons to call on prime minister Keir Starmer to ban burqas in the UK. It is reported that there had been tensions between Yusuf and other figures in Reform, but this appears to have been the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Sarah Pochin uses a question at PMQs to call for a burqa ban.

Yusuf has faced Islamophobic abuse from some within the party’s ranks. On social media, some Reform supporters have questioned whether a Muslim can ever truly belong in the party, while others have threatened to leave it because of him.

Asked on GB News whether Yusuf viewed Pochin’s question as a slight against himself, party leader Nigel Farage suggested instead that Yusuf more likely didn’t see banning the burqa as a high priority issue for Reform. Both Farage and former party chairman Richard Tice have stood by Pochin, saying a debate is needed on banning the burqa.

Yusuf, once heralded as a rising star in Reform and in British politics, didn’t go into further detail but referred to his successes in the party instead: “I’ve worked full time as a volunteer to take the party from 14 to 30%, quadrupled its membership and delivered historic electoral results.”

Yusuf was referring to the fact that Reform is currently polling at 30%, has five MPs and has recently taken control of ten councils in England – the first time it has ever held governing roles.

Shortly after Yusuf’s departure, Nathaniel Fried, who had been brought into Reform to spearhead the party’s Doge-style efficiency drive in local councils, also resigned, stating he had doubts about the future of the project.

Reform will now be asking itself if it can continue its successful trajectory without theses figures. We’ll soon find out if it was Yusuf alone who was responsible for the professionalisation that has recently delivered so much electoral success.

Treading a fine line from the start

When he was first appointed, Yusuf promised to “bring all my expertise, energy and passion to the role to ensure we achieve our mission of returning Great Britain to greatness”. Mirroring the Maga project is the US, Yusuf’s focus was on making the UK great again by controlling the country’s borders and restoring sovereignty.

Yusuf’s attachment to Reform, a party which has made anti-immigration its political focus, was significant given that his own parents were first-generation immigrants from Sri Lanka. Yet Yusuf was the face of established ethnic minority communities in the UK who have immigration backgrounds but take a tough line on newcomers.

He describes himself as a British Muslim patriot, who loves his country. My forthcoming research with colleagues details how the justifications used by minorities who voted for Brexit were very similar to those in the public at large – with an uncontrolled immigration being a key issue.

Party leader Nigel Farage said he was sorry to see Yusuf go and recognised that he was a loss for the party. Farage claimed that the two of them “barely had a disagreement” in working together but that others had not got on well with Yusuf.

Farage claimed that Yusuf’s business background left him struggling in politics and that he brought a “bit of a Goldman Sachs mentality” to his job, which put him at odds with others. He said interpersonal skills were “at the top of his list of attributes”.

However, in a significant new development, Farage did acknowledge that Yusuf had faced abuse on social media from the “alt-right”. This was the first time he has ever publicly acknowledged the abundance of racist and Islamophobic abuse Yusuf has received on social media by Reform supporters.

He did somewhat contradict himself later by blaming “Indian bots” for spreading content that misled Reform voters. Tim Montgomerie, another high-profile former Conservative Reform supporter also cited personal abuse as a factor: “He faced a lot of prejudice, not necessarily from inside the party but on social media, I think that affected him.”

Given that for years the racism and Islamaphobia faced by Yusuf was never publicly acknowledged, it’s interesting that the party elite clearly see the need to recognise the racism as part of the damage limitation exercise they’ve now had to undertake.

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No doubt Farage saw Yusuf as an asset to the party. Only days before the falling out, he had heralded him as an example of why Reform could not be accused of being racist: “I would remind everybody that the chairman of the party is Scottish-born, but comes from parents who come from the Indian subcontinent. But we don’t talk about race at all. We think everybody should be treated equally. We object very strongly to the segmentation of people into different types.” Farage acknowledged that Yusuf’s race was a benefit to him when responding to his resignation, too.

It matters that Reform’s highest profile minority member is no more. It also shows the disunity in a political party which is growing very quickly. This is a pattern from yesteryear. Party infighting used to happen in the old days of Reform’s predecessors, UKIP and the Brexit Party.

It was a big part of why they did not reach the heights currently being enjoyed by Reform. This is, ironically, the first big test of the professionalisation drive that Yusuf led.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Parveen Akhtar, Aston University

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Parveen Akhtar has previously received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council and the British Academy.