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Reform’s Zia Yusuf Sparks Strong Response After Clash With BBC Question Time Audience Member

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Reform’s head of policy Zia Yusuf startled BBC Question Time audience members on Thursday with his curt response to a question.

During an immigration special, one member of the crowd took issue with the anti-immigration party’s claim that there are enough people in the UK to “not need foreign doctors”.

The man in the audience said: “I joined the NHS as a student in 1974. We’ve been totally reliant on doctors from Asia initially, and the care sector is totally dependent on care workers from abroad, despite nine million people not being in work.”

He said population growth and a shortage of funds for hospitals has gone down, telling Yusuf: “So you’re conflating lots of different things to make your argument.”

He pointed out that Reform has promised migrant workers will lose their indefinite leave to remain if they get into government.

“So if you’ve worked as a care worker in nursing home for 40 years, you are already since last year not allowed to bring your children over,” the man said.

“When you get to 65, you’ll be sent back to where you came from, is that what you’re suggesting?”

Yusuf said: “No. It’s not at all. And if you’d paid attention to what we are announcing, you would not have that view.”

A surprised “ooh” went around the hall at that response, but Yusuf continued: “My mother is a care home worker –”

Migration minister Mike Tapp then chimed in: “Typically rude. Be polite to people at the same time. They’re not decent, that’s the problem.”

Yusuf ignored the response to his tone and said Reform have announced they will have an “acute skills shortage visa specifically for sectors like the care home sector”.

The Reform representative also hit out at the show later, criticising the BBC for supposedly “planting” small boat migrants in the audience.

Yusuf told GB News: “How on earth it should be deemed appropriate that people who have broken into this country illegally should have a seat at the table in a discussion about illegal immigration… it is bewildering.”

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Pact Or No Pact, Reform May Already Turning Into The Tories 2.0

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Nigel Farage seemed to attract even more attention than usual this week – and not exactly the kind he likes.

Not only has the Guardian revealed 28 witnesses have now accused him of making anti-semitic and racist remarks while he was at school but, according to the Financial Times, he told donors he expected to make a merger or a pact with the Tories before the next election.

When it comes to the allegations against him, the Reform leader has only admitted to engaging in “banter in a playground” and rebuffed the FT’s story completely.

But the reports evidently got to him. Farage stunned journalists on Thursday with a furious rant against the BBC and ITV in a press conference, accusing them of “hypocrisy”.

He also claimed there would be no deal with the Conservatives, and that any such allegations were “ludicrous”.

But, he did suggest Reform could engineer “reverse takeover” where he would absorb the party by winning over defectors.

But Farage insisted: “A deal with them as they are would cost us votes.”

Reform are indeed still ahead in the polls. More in Common predicted in a September mega-survey of 20,000 Brits that the next general election looks like it might be theirs to lose.

And the racism row is yet to put a major dent in their consistent poll lead: YouGov found the party is still ahead on 25% as of December 1, with Labour on 22% and the Tories on 19%.

If it did not scare off too many supporters, a combined the Tory and Reform votes would give a joint right-wing party a very generous lead in the polls (44%, according to YouGov).

But Farage’s apparent dismay over the idea of working with the Conservatives ignores an obvious fact that his party is already made up of former Tories.

“There’s a chance that Reform begin to look like the same sort of political party the public are so keen to break away from.”

He has accepted 21 individuals who have previously been elected as Conservative MPs to his party just since the 2024 general election.

Danny Kruger was serving in the shadow cabinet when he crossed the floor to join Reform in September.

Former Tory minister Andrea Jenkyns became Reform’s first mayor when she was elected to represent Greater Lincolnshire in April, while ex-culture secretary Nadine Dorries joined earlier this year.

Former MPs, Ee-deputy party chair Jonathan Gullis, Lia Nici and Chris Green, also joined just this week.

In fact, the party’s first MP was Lee Anderson, the former deputy chairman for the Tories who defected to Reform in early 2024.

Reform’s deputy Richard Tice was a Conservative donor and party member up until 2019, and Farage himself was a Tory until 1992.

The party leader even failed to rule out accepting right-wing Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick into the fold at some point in the future.

He justified accepting former Tory MPs by admitting people who have been in government just help strengthen the party, and seems to position Reform’s success directly against the Conservatives’ decline – even if unintentionally.

Just this week, when playing down reports of a merger, he said: “We will ensure [the Tories] cease to be a national party in May.”

But one more prominent voice has tried to clear a distinct line between the two blue parties.

Reform’s head of policy Zia Yusuf even had to tell supporters on X grassroots would get priority over “washed up” ex-Tory MPs.

He said: “I’ve had many messages from Reform grassroots worried about former Tory MPs joining our party.

“I want to be clear to our Reform grassroots: YOU will be prioritised in candidate selection for our next class of MPs, NOT failed former Tory MPs.”

British Reform party leader Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf, left, show the program Operation Restoring Justice during a press conference in a hangar at Oxford Airport in Kidlington, England, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025.
British Reform party leader Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf, left, show the program Operation Restoring Justice during a press conference in a hangar at Oxford Airport in Kidlington, England, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025.

via Associated Press

This wariness from Yusuf about becoming the Tories 2.0 may be well-placed.

Political research director of pollsters at Savanta, Chris Hopkins, told HuffPost UK Reform risk starting to look like the sort of party the public are rejecting.

“Nigel Farage remains Reform’s greatest, and arguably sole, electoral weapon. It is he, and not really the infrastructure behind him, increasingly comprising of former Tories, that cements Reform’s appeal as an anti-establishment force,” Hopkins said.

“Providing he remains dominant at the top of the party, Reform will continue to be strong, but if a cabal of ex-Tories behind the scenes seek to undermine him, there’s a chance that Reform begin to look like the same sort of political party the public are so keen to break away from.”

The polling expert said that as a new party, Reform’s broadest appeal is that they no longer present a great electoral risk.

He said: “If they can’t trust the Tories to be competent after 14 years in government, and they can’t trust Labour after 18 months to have done any better, then why not roll the dice on something completely different. In short, how bad could they actually be?

“But that still relies on Reform UK looking different to the Tories.

“Minor defections don’t really move the needle with the public, but if there does become a sense that Reform UK are just the Conservatives 2.0, I’m less convinced of their appeal compared to what they have cultivated so far, which is a clean break and an alternative from the Con-Lab status quo.”

“”The last thing this country needs is a rinse and repeat of the last Conservative government.”

Their political opponents have been quick to criticise the idea of a merger, too, no matter how much Reform deny it.

Keir Starmer dubbed the idea of a Tory-Reform pact an “unholy alliance of austerity and failure” during prime minister’s questions on Wednesday.

A Labour Party spokesperson told HuffPost UK that Reform was becoming an “unsavoury cocktail of ex-Tories”.

“The Tories were responsible for breaking our public services and hammering family finances while in power. Now they are the recycled face of Nigel Farage’s party,” the representative said.

“Reform can’t fool the public. This unsavoury cocktail of ex-Tories want to inflict that damage all over again. It’s a risk working people simply can’t afford. ”

The Liberal Democrats called Reform a “Tory tribute act only separated by a slightly different shade of blue”.

“The last thing this country needs is a rinse and repeat of the last Conservative government,” a spokesperson said.

Meanwhile the Green Party told HuffPost UK: “Conservative MPs defecting to Reform doesn’t concern us, we don’t want to intrude on the private grief of the right wing parties of inequality battling it out.”

While Reform has not taken any huge Tory figures yet, what the party chooses to do next – before the big test of the local elections in May – could define it in terms of its place on the political stage.

Will Farage play it safe by officially stepping into right-wing vacuum left by the Tories’ decline – or will he firmly establish Reform as an entirely new entity?

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What We Know Now About The Novichok Poisonings, Seven Years Later

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A long-awaiting report into the shocking and deadly novichok poisonings from 2018 has finally been published – and it lays the blame squarely at Vladimir Putin’s feet.

After an £8.3 million inquiry, here’s what you need to know.

What happened in 2018?

A former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia were hospitalised after coming into contact with a nerve agent at their home in Salisbury.

The ex-spook had been settled in a suburban cul-de-sac after a previous spy exchange.

While the Skripals survived their near-death encounter, Russian agents inadvertently poisoned more people by casually disposing of the novichok nerve agent, which was stored in a fake perfume bottle.

An unconnected individual, Dawn Sturgess, later died after spraying the same substance over herself while at the home of her boyfriend Charlie Rowley in Amesbury, on June 30, 2018.

It’s thought Rowley gave the bottle to his partner after he found it abandoned.

He too fell ill and went into a coma after coming into contact with the poison, but later recovered.

Two Russian men who were named as suspects that September claimed to have been visiting Salisbury Spire as tourists and were supported by Vladimir Putin who claimed there was “nothing criminal about them”.

The incident was instrumental in souring UK-Russian relations.

Men identified as Alexander Petrov, left, and Ruslan Boshirov, were accused of being involved with the poisonings.
Men identified as Alexander Petrov, left, and Ruslan Boshirov, were accused of being involved with the poisonings.

via Associated Press

What did the report conclude?

The inquiry concluded Putin is “morally responsible” for Sturgess’s death and that the poisoning was meant to be a “public demonstration of Russian power”.

Lord Hughes, the inquiry chair, said the Russian president must have authorised the assassination attempt on former spy Sergei Skripal in Salisbury.

He said: “I am sure that in conducting their attack on Sergei Skripal, they were acting on instructions. I have concluded that the operation to assassinate Sergei Skripal must have been authorised at the highest level, by President Putin.”

He also criticised the “astonishingly reckless act” of the Russian men who filled a fake perfume bottle with novichok.

Hughes said: “They recklessly discarded this bottle somewhere public or semi-public before leaving Salisbury. They can have had no regard for the hazard thus created, of the death of, or serious injury to, an unaccountable number of innocent people.”

Sturgess suffered from “very serious brain injury” after her heart stopped for “an extended period of 30 minutes or so immediately after she was poisoned”.

The report also found three Russian operatives had arrived in London from Moscow on March 2, intending to kill the double agent Skripal.

Novichok was later placed on the handle of his front door, according to the inquiry.

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🗣️ \"I’ve concluded that the operation to assassinate Sergei Skripal must have been authorised at the highest level, indeed by President Putin,\" says Lord Hughes, public inquiry chairman of the assassination attempt on a former Russian spy.https://t.co/I2JfwwmGE9

📺 Sky 501 pic.twitter.com/WS3iwN4lP9

— Sky News (@SkyNews) December 4, 2025

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🗣️ “I’ve concluded that the operation to assassinate Sergei Skripal must have been authorised at the highest level, indeed by President Putin,” says Lord Hughes, public inquiry chairman of the assassination attempt on a former Russian spy.https://t.co/I2JfwwmGE9

📺 Sky 501 pic.twitter.com/WS3iwN4lP9

— Sky News (@SkyNews) December 4, 2025

What about the implications for the UK?

Hughes said Wiltshire police wrongly characterised Strugess as a dug user after she was poisoned.

He said there was “no alert” that could have stopped Sturgess’s death or improved her treatment,

But he noted it was reasonable public health officials had not given the public advice not to pick anything up, because it was not clear where the poison came from at the time.

He also said there were mistakes in the way the British state ought to have taken steps to prevent the poisoning, particularly in the way Skripal was managed as an exchanged prisoner.

While Hughes admitted more security would not have helped anything, he added: “The only such measures which could have avoided the attack would have been such as to hide him completely with a new identity.”

The inquiry also called for a new process to be set up to alert local police if anything happens to individuals with “sensitive backgrounds”.

What happens now?

Immediately after the report was released, the Foreign Office (FCDO) declared that it is cracking down on the Russian intelligence agency linked to the poisonings – the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency – in its entirety.

The FCDO claims the UK has sanctioned and exposed 11 actors behind Russian state sponsored hostile activity, including those working for the GRU.

The Russian ambassador has also been summoned to the Foreign Office to answer for Russia’s ongoing campaign of hostile activity against the UK.

The new sanctions will also zero in on eight cyber military intelligence officers working for the GRU.

Starmer said: “Today’s findings are a grave reminder of the Kremlin’s disregard for innocent lives.”

However, the Russian agents named as suspects are unlikely to ever face justice as they are protected by the Kremlin.

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