“Zia Yusuf is a brilliant man, and he’s a genius actually, and he’s an incredible communicator,” Tory defector and Reform member Nadine Dorries told Times Radio recently. But, she added: “I wish he closed down his Twitter account.”The interview followed a tweet by Reform’s self-styled “shadow home secretary” in response to reports that Somali-born Sagal Abdi-Wali, the leader of Camden Council, was the favourite to be Labour’s candidate to replace Keir Starmer in the Holborn and St Pancras by-election. Yusuf asked his followers: “Do you understand what’s happening?”, a remark that drew condemnation from across the political spectrum for its apparent racial undertones.
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