A bitter war of words was raging last night between Reform UK and the Conservatives after Nigel Farage’s right-hand man Zia Yusuf was branded ‘a phoney’ over his former links to the Tories.
Conservative sources claimed that Reform’s former chairman Mr Yusuf had only abandoned the Tories when his hopes of being a parliamentary candidate in a safe seat were dashed.
A senior Tory source accused Mr Yusuf of ‘giving up’ on the Tories after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called an early election in 2024 and ruined his candidate hopes.
But last night Mr Yusuf, 38, insisted he had never applied to be a Conservative parliamentary candidate and branded the Tories ‘dishonest clowns’.
Mr Yusuf was at Mr Farage’s side last week at the launch of the party’s flagship ‘mass deportations’ policy on tackling the migrant small boats crisis in the Channel.
