After receiving a request from within the party ranks to outlaw the burqa, the Muslim leader of the radical right-wing Reform UK party in the United Kingdom has resigned.
Hours after kicking back at Reform UK lawmaker Sarah Pochin for asking Prime Minister Keir Starmer if his government might consider outlawing the burqa, Zia Yusuf declared on X on Thursday, “I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time.”
In a political environment traditionally dominated by the ruling Labour Party and the opposition Conservatives, Pochin won her seat in a by-election last month that saw the anti-immigration party, some of whose members have been accused of Islamophobia, gain significant ground.
The new lawmaker asked Labour’s Starmer to decide whether the move was “in the interests of public safety” when she made her first appearance on Wednesday at the BBC.
In the midst of a raging debate over whether banning the burqa should be party policy, Yusuf said, “I do think it’s stupid for a party to ask the PM if they would do something the party wouldn’t do.”
After leaving the Conservative Party, Yusuf, a former banker and self-described “proud British Muslim patriot,” assumed leadership of Reform UK after the general election of last year.
In a remarkable election last year, Reform UK, led by Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, won four parliamentary seats, moving on to win its first mayoralty, and a number of council seats in local elections last month.
It currently outperforms the Labour Party in national opinion polls.
Yusuf is “a huge factor in our success on May 1st,” Farage claimed on X.
Prior to now, party hierarchy divisions had been made public.
Rupert Lowe, one of Reform’s lawmakers, was charged with a number of charges, including physical assault on Yusuf, in March.
Source: Aljazeera
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