𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Zia Yusuf, the millionaire entrepreneur at the heart of plans for what a Reform UK Government would do in power, insists Sir Keir Starmer is “toast” and says his departure should trigger a general election. The 39-year-old who has helped push Nigel Farage’s party to the top of the polls predicts Sir Keir will be replaced with a Labour Left-winger and says there “isn’t a mandate for that from the British people”. 

He claims the Labour membership is now so far Left “they’d make Lenin blush” and warns the arrival of Sir Keir’s successor in Downing Street could result in a “fast-track to economic chaos in a similar way to Liz Truss”. He argues: “There is no way that Starmer is going to be replaced by somebody to the Right of him who is saying, ‘No, we need fiscal discipline, we need to get our borders under control.’”

Calling a general election, he says, would be the “honourable thing” – though he notes the Conservatives did not go to the polls for a fresh mandate when leaders were felled. The former Goldman Sachs staffer’s ambitions for Reform go far beyond winning power.

“For us,” he explains, “the worst case scenario is that we win and we’re ill-prepared and we let people down. That would actually, I think, be worse than not winning.”

A Reform Government, he predicts, will be unlike anything Britain has seen in recent times. It will arrive with “thousands of pages of primary legislation ready to go” and, he is sure, unprecedented unity.

If the party wins a majority in the Commons, he claims, Mr Farage as Prime Minister will be “far more empowered over domestic affairs than any G7 leader”.

“We haven’t had a Government in which the Prime Minister and the parliamentary party behind them were united and clear in their goals for about 15 years,” he says. “That just hasn’t happened. And that is one reason the country is in the state that it’s in, because the country has not had political leadership willing to do things that are critically important but actually difficult.”

As Head of Policy, Mr Yusuf is nailing down Reform’s plans for running the country – and he is confident the party’s MPs will not mirror the divisions in the traditional parties of government.

They will “walk through walls to vote that stuff through,” he says.

The men and women hoping to be Reform MPs “believe all of this stuff in their bones,” he states, adding: “It’ll be why they came into politics. Nobody’s coming forward to stand for Reform in a parliamentary seat because they want open borders. It’s not going to happen.”

The party is braced for conflict with “unelected institutions” such as the House of Lords and the civil service.

“My view of the House of Lords is it’s become an utterly corrupt and frankly depraved institution,” he says, claiming it is “full of failed civil servants who are rewarded for catastrophic failure by being put up there, or you just donated a load of money to a political party who happened to be in power”.

He recognises Reform needs to show it has an explicit mandate for contentious policies, which is why it is unveiling plans years ahead of the election.

“In order for us to have the moral high ground as we take on these institutions,” he explains, “we have to be able to look people in the eye and say, ‘We told the British people we were going to do this. They looked at what our plans were and they said ‘That’s what we want’.”

Quoting MP Danny Kruger, who has defected from the Conservatives to Reform, he adds: “If you stand in our way at that point, we’ll use the power of democracy to blow you away.”

In recent months Reform has been joined by high profile former Tories, most notably Robert Jenrick and Suella Braverman. Is there unease in Reform ranks that so many ex-Conservatives are now at the core of the insurgent party?

“We are being extremely selective about whom we’re taking,” he says. “What people don’t see are the many Tories whom we say no to who have wanted to join.”

The majority of members of a Reform Cabinet, he expects, will be from “outside” politics. Getting the right talent in place is crucial because “there are so many critical roles that we’re going to need brilliant people in”.

And once they are in post, he adds, people will see a very different model of leadership in a Farage premiership.

“He’s not going to reshuffle the Cabinet every year so you’re doing health for five minutes and then education for two minutes and then you’re now running our Armed Forces for 10 minutes.”

When asked if he wants to destroy the Conservative party he says the “honest answer” is yes, but this is “not out of spite”.

“The primary objective is to win the general election, turn this great country around, make it prosperous and powerful again. But in order to do that in a first-past-the-post system, yes, the Tory party must cease to be an electoral force and a national political party.

“I think that’s going to happen after the May elections. I think they’re going to get wiped out in Scotland, wiped out in Wales, wiped out across a vast swathe of England.”

Kemi Badenoch’s position as Tory leader has been strengthened since Mr Jenrick’s departure, he argues, but he claims this is because “her primary challenger has joined the other team”.

“The problem for her and everyone in the Conservative Party is that the Tory party is now utterly devoid of any talent.”

Mr Yusuf, who was born in Bellshill, south east of Glasgow, to parents from Sri Lanka, has special scorn for Boris Johnson.

“He was going to secure the borders, get Brexit done, and we were going to get this post-Brexit boom. And then what did he do? He took control of the borders and threw them open, right?”

He is no less pugnacious about the state of Labour in the wake of the Mandelson-Epstein scandal, describing it as a “dumpster fire”. He thinks Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband may succeed Sir Keir and says he is “possibly one of the most incompetent, moronic people ever to hold a cabinet position”.

Electorally, there is “no way back for Labour,” he claims, saying that “after a certain point the physics of it are impossible to fix”. But he fears what the party will do with its remaining time in power.

“I think Brexit under this current Labour Government is in mortal danger,” he says. “I mean, look, the political class has been trying to extinguish the Brexit vote from the moment the referendum results dropped, right? They’ve been doing everything they can to stymie the will of the British people, looking for any excuse.”

Reform supporters pack out rallies and queue for selfies with Mr Farage. Mr Yusuf admits he and others feel the weight of their expectations.

For the men and women in this movement which has terrified the political establishment, “Reform isn’t just another political party,” he says, but the “last hope the country has” to change direction.

He believes the man he wants to make Prime Minister is already the “most consequential politician in our lifetimes”. And if he succeeds in getting him into Number 10, everything that has come so far will be the prelude to the democratic revolution Reform is planning today.