{"id":100960,"date":"2026-08-10T19:35:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T19:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/100960\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T19:35:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T19:35:57","slug":"ex-defence-secretary-fires-back-after-zia-yusuf-dubs-former-tory-mp-a-traitor-to-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/100960\/","title":{"rendered":"Ex-Defence Secretary Fires Back After Zia Yusuf Dubs Former Tory MP ‘A Traitor To Britain’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ben Wallace<\/a> has hit back at Zia Yusuf <\/a>after the Reform<\/a> home affairs spokesperson called the ex-defence secretary a \u201ctraitor to Britain\u201d.<\/p>\n

Their social media row began when Wallace, who stood down as a Conservative<\/a> MP in 2024, criticised Reform UK\u2019s plan to fix the shortage of prison spaces by sending foreign criminals abroad.<\/a><\/p>\n

The right-wing party has proposed deporting those with non-custodial sentences to their country of origin if they ever get into government.<\/p>\n

Those with custodial sentences would either be forced to go home or to a third country, like El Salvador.<\/p>\n

But Wallace, a former Tory cabinet minister, tore into the proposal while also accusing Yusuf of \u201cmaking policy and facts up\u201d.<\/p>\n

He wrote on X: \u201cIf memory serves me right the top foreign nationalities in UK prisons are Irish, Polish, Romanian, Albanian and Baltics. Total number of foreign offenders always hovered around 10-11k.<\/p>\n

\u201c Reform have to answer a.) how they will force those countries to take these offenders. For decades they have refused to.<\/p>\n

\u201cb.) If they won\u2019t and then deport them but they are released how will that sit with their victims? And the Irish offenders will find it easy to return.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yusuf soon hit back by calling Wallace, who headed up the defence department for four years, a \u201cmoron\u201d.<\/p>\n

He wrote on X: \u201cIncredible that this moron was defence secretary.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur policy today is in direct response to your government\u2019s failures.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf their home countries won\u2019t take back, their citizens that are languishing in our jails, we are renting spaces in countries like El Salvador to put them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will serve their full jail terms there, and will be banned from ever coming back to Britain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey may well include some of the thousands of Afghans you imported, including those who had not been vetted properly and including Taliban fighters (!).<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, the ones you took a super injunction out to keep secret from the British people? That\u2019s why I call you a traitor to Britain. You fit the dictionary definition.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Wallace hit back: \u201cOh look a lesson from a man who never put a uniform on…just worked at bank.<\/p>\n

\u201cA man who is literally making policy and facts up.<\/p>\n

\u201cA man who cant even get his own party to pick him as an MP ( tell us why please?).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Reform stop taking \u00a35m bungs <\/a>and start being honest with people then people might take you seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one is saying don\u2019t send prisoners back when you can but don\u2019t lie to the public you can do it with a magic wand. You guys are getting desperate. After all you recruited Suella!\u201d<\/p>\n

Suella Braverman<\/a> worked in the Tory cabinet at the same time as Wallace but defected to Reform earlier this year.<\/p>\n

Listen to Commons People, <\/a>the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week\u2019s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what\u2019s going on at Westminster.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Wallace has hit back at Zia Yusuf after the Reform home affairs spokesperson called the ex-defence secretary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[42515,13,3724,4573],"class_list":["post-100960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-britain","tag-ben-wallace","tag-britain","tag-conservative-party","tag-zia-yusuf"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117072899769659618","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}