Local Party Structure – Branch Roll Out Begins

Welcome back to Good Afternoon Britain and it’s time to bring you a GB News exclusive it is indeed. So, off the back of their election success with the party winning their first seats in Parliament, leader Nigel Farage is now switching from a nationwide plan to a local party structure, this is all part of the plans to democratize the party.

Indeed well, yes, we’re going to go over now to our political editor Christopher Hope who is joined by the chairman of reform UK, Zia Yusuf in Westminster for this big announcement so go on then, hello Patrick, hello that’s a big drum roll yeah, joining me now is Zia Yusuf, he’s the Reform UK chairman with his first major interview since that election, I would say a win for the party, five MPs last month Zia Yusuf, thank you for joining us on GB News.

Nigel Farage wants to democratize your party, what does that look like? Well, look what we’re focused on now, what I’m focused on as chairman is turning this party into a formidable force in British politics. We are building a national infrastructure all over the country to build a grassroots ballot box winning machine with a local party structure.

I’ve been chairman for 5 weeks you know, what have we been up to? Well, firstly we’ve been focused on drafting a constitution, essentially putting in place a Chair in all of the constituencies in which we’re going to have a local Reform Branch structure.

We have seen our membership surge to 75,000 and that continues to rocket. We’re going to be standing 2,300 candidates next year in local Council elections for which we’ve already had 3,000 applicants. 3,000 applicants, brilliant patriots from all sorts of backgrounds so we’re very excited about that. We also had an event two days ago; I think you’ve heard about this. 70 constituency Chairs, new constituency Chairs, brand new local party structure Reform branches in those constituencies are composed of 6 million electors and constituents and in two weeks’ time we’ll have another event with another 70 representing another 5 million.

Reform UK Party Constitution to be Published

We have been busy organizing our conference, it’s going to be the biggest conference this party has ever seen, it’s going to be unlike anything else seen before in British politics. 20^th & 21st of September, I hope you’ve got your tickets Chris because we want you there.

Reform Party on and most importantly Chris we have seen in the polls that have just come out in the last week we have seen that the Reform Party now polling it between 18 and 21%. That is up from the brilliant 14% that we won at the general election just a few weeks ago and one of my mandates from Nigel as chairman is to ensure that we are now building a national infrastructure to convert that, all of that surging support into victory after victory at the ballot box.

So it seems that you’re benefiting from the Tory party not having a leader until the 2nd of October, so you’re pushing forward aren’t you with trying to win support. Is it actually working? I mean, there’s been two polls since the election both show swings of voters towards Reform UK from the Labour Party, are you seeing that on the ground?

We’re seeing it, we’re hearing it all the time Chris, you know as I said 18 to 21% now is where our support is, again as I said what’s really important ultimately, polls are just not the thing that unfortunately that elects governments, people do that at the ballot box which is why we’ve been so focused on building this democratized local party structure with branches across the country.

Yes, absolutely I mean look, there are so many Labour voters even this year who are non-graduate, working class people who work really hard, who essentially already can see just how much Two Tier Kiers government are actively working against their interests and look, Reform is the natural home for those voters so 75,000 members that’s a lot, a big increase on the 20,000 or so early this year.

Candidate Vetting to be Vastly Improved

Have you weeded out the bad apples, those who recorded saying dreadful remarks and can embarrass the party?

They are huge frustration for Nigel Farage, well look, again one of my mandates as Chairman of the party is to ensure that we have absolutely outstanding candidates, let me be really clear, we had an amazing roster of candidates overall, we had hundreds and hundreds of really amazing people who stood for Reform for which we were incredibly grateful.

I will look at the data, I look at all the hard work that was done during that election, I have enormous respect for all of the hard work building those campaigns, but what I will say is that what it wasn’t was a well-oiled slick machine, totally understandably because this was a very threadbare. I mean, I’ll tell you as Chairman the word threadbare resources doesn’t begin to do it justice. So what we’re focused on now is making sure we have an amazing roster of candidates and we will have that next year, we’ll have it the year after that and we’ll have it the year after that and you are vetting them aren’t you? There was a problem wasn’t there with vetting?

There absolutely was, again, a very small number you know talking about 2 to 3% but look, we make no excuses for that, ultimately, we have to be better than that. We know we’re going to get held to a higher standard than any other party, so let’s be clear, we were by no means alone, Labour had problems, the Greens had problems and the Lib Dems had problems, but we know that that’s the game, that we know we are playing it’s Master Level difficulty, that’s the one that we will play and win.

We have an in-house vetting team that is being built, we’re investing heavily in it and we won’t have those problems again.

Reform UK Grows Up into a Serious Party

To what extent is the support for Reform UK if you’re ahead of Labour, of the Tory party in two polls is a protest vote about the failure of 14 years of the Tory party and also the issue with Labour’s you know, recently been quite divisive with some of its policies?

Well, Reform UK you know my message to Reform UK members and supporters and people considering Reform UK is that this party is no longer a protest group right, this is a serious political party. We are going to be a formidable force in British politics, we’re going to be durable, we’re going to be here to stay, we’re going to be using modern technology and most importantly we’re going to be helping to manifest and convert all of that energy and support into victory at the ballot box via our local party structure.

Figures out today showed that Reform UK’s income is now £1.35 million, double in a year that’s year to March, that’s before your donation came in how much money have you given to the party?

I’ve given £200,000. Will you be giving more? I have no plans to give more and I’ll tell you why, it’s because we have so many incredible people who want to give money by the way, the biggest portion of our donations come from small donors you know, as 75,000 members who pay £25 a year you know, every day I get a report of people who are donating you know £5, £10, £15 pounds. All of that is so important, Nigel gets so many cheques through the mail from people, you know these are patriotic people who love him, payable to him or payable to the Reform Party and they’re going to be used to continue to build our infrastructure and going to be used in campaigns.

Reform Party Structure to Become Democratic

Are you looking at changing the logo, a name change even a different colour of the Branding? There are many things on my to-do list, some of which we have prioritized, changing the logo and the colour for now are not at the top of that list. I like the turquoise, you don’t like the turquoise? It’s distinctive.

Ben Habib, the former deputy leader he’s been critical of Reform UK, he has got no relationship with the leadership anymore he says, he says that if Reform UK ran the government, it would be owned by Nigel Farage. What he means is that Reform UK is a company and most of the shares were owned by Nigel Farage, how do you change that and will you change that?

We will change that and let me be clear Nigel Farage and Richard Tice have been on the record multiple times before the election and after the election saying yes of course that will change, right you know the history here is that if you know the history for example with UKIP that unfortunately turned into an ungovernable circus to put it kindly, and so we can only do one thing at a time Chris.

Look we of course understand that members need to be given a Democratic set of Rights in our Constitution that is what we are working on you know. That Constitution by the way Chris is an incredibly important document you know, we are chartering a course to be the party of government in this country in 2029 so that document must be fit for purpose today, for the next year, but also for when we in government and that so we have to get that document right and will that document, when we see it allow members to remove the leader in this case Nigel Farage?

Member Voting Rights

That’s what all parties must have, the right for members to remove a leader. Of course it will, how? Well, when the Constitution comes out you know we have some of the finest legal Minds in the country working day and night by the way you know around the clock like most of our team to draft the document.

I’m not going to write the document live on GB News as much as I’d love to do that with you now Chris, but of course doing these things again Nigel and Richard have been really clear that that’s going to be a priority for us after the election and that’s what we’re working on.

Reform UK is criticized by the left as being in some ways a racist party? Now that we obviously will contest that and if you would contest that how do you feel about being a chairman of a party that has that reputation on the left?

Well look, I think ultimately what Reform are about is standing up for British values, for people of Britain, British citizens of all backgrounds, regardless of the colour of your skin, which God you pray to etc, that has been abundantly clear to me, that’s why I got involved.

I’ve known Nigel for a decade, he has done actually you know, here’s the deep irony about this, he has done more I would say than any other British politician to be a scourge to the far right in terms of what happened with Griffin and you know those BNP days and as Nigel said, look because the BMP are not a real force, not a force at all really in British politics anymore, those sorts of people don’t necessarily have somewhere to go so they represent a tiny fraction of the parties.

Reform UK the Party for Everyone

Obviously we had some candidates who don’t represent our values again we make no excuse about that, we absolutely understand that that had to be resolved, but look this party again what Reform are about is standing up for British values, British people of all background and just finally the goal is to beat the Tories in 2028 / 29, our goal is to be the party of government in 2029 which means beating Labour and that’s possible from this low start five MPs.

75,000 members you can do that, I built quite a successful and sophisticated technology company, I’m quite good with data, I have spent weeks and weeks pouring over the data, we have a clear path to victory, don’t me wrong it’s long odds right, saving the country generally is quite a difficult endeavour, it’s not going to be easy, it’s going to be very tough, but it’s absolutely possible and we’re going to do it.

Well Zia Yusuf, thank you for joining us, that’s Zia Yusuf, Tom and Emily the Reform UK chairman in the first significant interview since that surprising general election result there for Reform UK last month.

Wonderful, thank you very much indeed Christopher Hope there college green thank you very much with the chairman of Reform UK apparently the money’s flooding in, the money’s flooding in huge numbers of members it certainly is yes, but they obviously want to try to usurp Labour don’t they, which is you going to be a big ask, but at the moment we don’t have an opposition, there is no opposition, we could have a budget without an opposition, we could have you know quite a lot of decisions being made potentially a free movement of people, some immigration decisions being made without any opposition, so I suppose that there is that vacuum at the moment isn’t there?

It remains to be seen whether or not they can sustain that, well they certainly want to put across that they’re putting their foot on the accelerator don’t they certainly not on the brakes so we’ll catch up on that I’m sure as they prepare for their big party conference.