{"id":168120,"date":"2025-06-08T17:20:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T17:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/168120\/"},"modified":"2025-06-08T17:20:26","modified_gmt":"2025-06-08T17:20:26","slug":"who-are-the-brexit-badboys-tipped-to-replace-zia-yusuf-as-reform-uk-turmoil-deepens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/168120\/","title":{"rendered":"Who are the ‘Brexit badboys’ tipped to replace Zia Yusuf as Reform UK turmoil deepens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nigel Farage<\/a> is on the hunt for someone to manage his party after his chairman dramatically quit.<\/p>\n

Zia Yusuf was seen as a key ally of Mr Farage and had played a central role in professionalising the party as it soared in opinion polls.<\/p>\n

But he sensationally resigned from the job he held for 11 months on Thursday, saying that working to get the party elected was no longer “a good use of my time”.<\/a><\/p>\n

It followed him branding a call from Reform\u2019s newest MP to ban the burka as “dumb”. Sarah Pochin used her debut at Prime Minister’s Questions to ask Sir Keir Starmer during whether he would support such a law.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Arron Banks<\/a> and Andy Wigmore, two of Mr Farage\u2019s allies known as \u201cthe Brexit bad boys\u201d, emerged as favourites to take on the chairman role.<\/p>\n

Mr Banks is a businessman who founded the Leave.EU<\/a> campaign with current Reform deputy leader Richard Tice<\/a> and was previously one of the largest donors to UKIP.<\/p>\n

In May, he came second to Labour as Reform\u2019s candidate in the West of England Mayoral election.<\/p>\n

He described suggestions that Mr Farage\u2019s leadership style meant it was difficult for the party to hold onto staff as \u201ca load of tosh\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Arron<\/p>\n

Arron Banks (right) and Andy Wigmore (left) leave Portcullis House on June 12, 2018 (Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\u201cAll political parties have comings and goings,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

MP Rupert Lowe was suspended by the party in March after an allegation he made threats towards Mr Yusuf.<\/p>\n

Mr Lowe alleged that the suspension was \u201cpolitically motivated\u201d after he made disparaging remarks about the Reform leader in a newspaper interview.<\/p>\n

Mr Farage also appeared to fall out with Reform\u2019s former co-deputy leader Ben Habib who was sacked soon after the general election.<\/p>\n

Mr Habib said the leader needed to realise the party \u201cshould not be controlled by one man\u201d before leaving the party.<\/p>\n

Mr Wigmore was director of communications for Leave.EU and a key figure in convincing the country to vote to leave the EU.<\/p>\n

The former diplomat for Belize and competitive clay pigeon shooter is said to be \u201chappy to let Nigel and Arron take most of the limelight\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Arron<\/p>\n

Arron Banks pictured with Nigel Farage (PA Archive\/PA Images)<\/p>\n

He was an official trade emissary to Belize before the UK foreign office stripped him of his diplomatic status after he appeared in a photo with Mr Farage and Donald Trump in front of a glittering gold lift in 2016.<\/p>\n

Self-described as \u201cdefinitely the most handsome of the Brexit Bad Boys\u201d he has operated more behind the scenes than other allies of Mr Farage.<\/p>\n

Reform UK<\/a>‘s deputy leader said women who wear burkas should be asked if it is “genuinely their choice”.<\/p>\n

Addressing the row, Richard Tice said the issue should be subject to a “national debate” as he entered the count for a Holyrood by-election on Thursday night.<\/p>\n

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday, Mr Tice said: “I think it is right that we should have a debate about whether or not the burka is appropriate for a nation that’s founded in Christianity, where women are equal citizens and should not be viewed as second class citizens.”<\/p>\n

Asked whether he supported a ban, he said he was “pretty concerned” about whether the burka was a “repressive item of clothing”, adding: “Let’s ask women who wear the burka, is that genuinely their choice?”<\/p>\n

Wearing face-covering clothes is currently banned in seven European countries – France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria and Bulgaria – while other countries have enacted partial bans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nigel Farage is on the hunt for someone to manage his party after his chairman dramatically quit. Zia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[70274,28907,802,748,70276,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,70277,70275,384,8721,16,15,37457],"class_list":{"0":"post-168120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-andy-wigmore","9":"tag-arron-banks","10":"tag-brexit","11":"tag-britain","12":"tag-deputy-leader","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-european","16":"tag-european-union","17":"tag-great-britain","18":"tag-mr-banks","19":"tag-mr-farage","20":"tag-nigel-farage","21":"tag-richard-tice","22":"tag-uk","23":"tag-united-kingdom","24":"tag-zia-yusuf"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114648896278651124","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}