Johnson UK’s most damaging PM, says Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf

Historical past will choose Boris Johnson as one of the damaging prime ministers in British historical past, Reform UK chairman Zia Yusuf has stated.

Yusuf informed the BBC’s Political Pondering podcast Johnson wouldn’t be welcome to hitch Reform UK.

The Reform UK chairman criticised Johnson’s document on the Covid pandemic, immigration and public spending when he was prime minister between 2019 and 2022.

Yusuf stated there was “nothing Conservative” about Johnson and branded the Tories an “extraordinarily left-wing occasion” in authorities.

The BBC has requested Johnson’s spokesperson for remark.

The occasion chairman spoke to the BBC’s Nick Robinson days after Reform UK topped a YouGov opinion ballot for the primary time, edging in entrance of Labour on 24% and the Tories on 21%.

The rebranded Brexit Get together got here third in final 12 months’s normal election, with 14% of the vote, however solely gained 5 MPs, together with occasion chief Nigel Farage.

Yusuf stated if there was a normal election tomorrow, the polling suggests Reform UK would win between 140 to 200 seats within the Home for Commons.

He claimed Reform UK would win as much as 400 seats on the subsequent normal election, though there isn’t a polling to again that up.

At a brand new convention this week, Yusuf stated Reform UK had virtually 200,000 members, which is way greater than the quantity declared by the Conservative Get together.

The BBC has been informed Boris Johnson had lunch with Reform UK’s important fundraiser Nick Sweet, who can also be an outdated pal, in Mayfair in late January.

However Yusuf informed Nick Robinson he wouldn’t need the previous PM to hitch Reform UK.

“Historical past will choose Boris Johnson as one of the damaging prime ministers on this nation’s historical past,” he stated.

The rise in web migration throughout Johnson’s premiership was “a complete betrayal of all people who voted for Brexit, ” he added.

“He took public spending near Soviet Union spending.

“So there was nothing Conservative about him.”

Against this, Yusuf heaped reward on former House Secretary Suella Braverman and stated she could be welcome in Reform UK.

He stated he had had a number of conferences with Braverman, whom he stated had been “excommunicated” and made a “pariah” by the Conservatives, regardless of what he stated had been her far-sighted views on immigration.

A former banker who bought his tech start-up firm for greater than £200m, Yusuf described himself as a “proud British Muslim patriot”, including that his religion was vital to him and he noticed Ramadan.

He turned Reform UK’s chairman shortly after final 12 months’s normal election, after beforehand being a member of the Conservative Get together.

He revealed that he had donated £200,000 to the occasion throughout the marketing campaign.

As occasion chairman, he was given the job of professionalising the occasion, wooing donors and rising Reform UK’s activist base.

He informed Nick Robinson Reform UK solely had 24 staff and “folks do not fairly recognize what has been achieved in such a short while”.

“A lot of what we do is about laying the foundations for generations to come back,” he added.

Kemi Badenoch denied plans to make it tougher for migrants to realize British citizenship – which was her first main polcy annoucement as Tory chief – was a response to the rise of Reform UK.

She dismissed its surge within the polls, saying she may bear in mind when one other rebel occasion, the SDP, was “at 50% within the polls” within the Eighties, and insisted her occasion was concentrating on “doing the pondering” on insurance policies that might enhance lives.

Labour can also be more and more turning its fireplace on Reform UK, with Sir Keir Starmer attacking Farage’s stance on NHS funding at this week’s prime minister’s questions.

You may hearken to the Political Pondering with Nick Robinson on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday at 17:30 GMT or on BBC Sounds.