Some less scrupulous Tory frontbenchers are scrolling back up their written records to see what they can dig up on Reform’s Shadow Chancellor Robert Jenrick. No love lost between old brothers…
The Times ran a story midweek detailing that Jenrick, six months before his defection, asked “a senior Conservative figure” for information on Yusuf after the Reform’s then head of DOGE liked a choice post on X:
“Hi. Do we have any information on Zia? Did he apply to be a candidate? Do we have his candidate application form? We should destroy him. Rob.
…I think gloves are off now. It’s dog eat dog with him!”
Guido can reveal the messages were leaked from Nigel Huddleston, who serves as Shadow DCMS Secretary. Nigel used to be Co-Chairman of the Tory Party until Badenoch moved him along in the 2025 reshuffle…
Huddleston is no stranger to strident views on the party leadership. Guido is told he was overheard after Tory Conference telling colleagues that the party “shouldn’t be afraid to replace the leader” and complaining that Badenoch was “not cutting through” sufficiently. Still a common view among some in the party – though maybe landing this Jenrick attack will score Nigel some more favour from LOTO…
UPDATE: Nigel did not want to speak, a senior Tory said:
“Jenrick and his team were completely obsessed by Zia and how they could destroy him. Jenrick was incandescent about Zia labelling him as a traitor to Britain and ridiculing his record on immigration. Rob only ever referred to him as Zia Useless, and he and his team were doing a lot of research into Zia’s dodgy background. Zia should watch his back, he’ll be first out the door when Rob takes over from Nigel.”
There is a row this morning over comments the Chancellor supplied to the Guardian overnight, crystallised in their write-up:
“Rachel Reeves has said she was angered by Nigel Farage’s suggestion that only British-born families should have the two-child benefit cap lifted, saying the Reform UK leader would keep children in poverty based on their skin colour… ‘I don’t really care what colour a kid’s skin is – some deserve to be in poverty and some don’t? That makes me pretty angry,’ she said.”
The clumsy language there obviously implies that British-born people are exclusively white and immigrants are not. The one time Reeves doesn’t get her words signed off by civil servants…
Zia Yusuf has taken this up this morning:
“Rachel Reeves comes out as an ethno nationalist. She believes only white people can be British.“
He went on to call for her to be sacked for her “beyond the pale and overtly racist” comments. Who said the first week back would be slow?
Farage and Zia Yusuf are in Westminster to deliver their response to the Budget.
Zia Yusuf and Lee Anderson are hosting Reform’s third press conference of the week. This time it’s all about the exploding welfare bill. Personal Independence Payments will be in the firing line…
Nigel Farage and Zia Yusuf have unveiled ‘Operation Restoring Justice’ up in Oxfordshire. They’re vowing to deport hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants if Reform enters government…
Reform is vowing to leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act, replacing it with a ‘British Bill of Rights’. They say they will pass the ‘Illegal Migration (Mass Deportation) Bill’ if they win in 2029. Details below…
Punchy…
Zia Yusuf has responded to Peter Kyle’s comments this morning saying Nigel Farage is on the side of Jimmy Savile:
“To use that allegation against Nigel is one of the most appalling and disgusting things I have seen in the political arena in my lifetime and I think it is upon him to apologise.”
Yusuf went on to attack Kyle as a ‘dinosaur’ with no experience in tech:
“And whatever horrors you think your child is already looking at, I promise you as a parent, once they go into that rabbit hole, it is your worst nightmare as a parent. And if you have, for example, BT or Sky, one of the child safety locks that you have, if you’re a parent, those VPNs defeat them because it basically hides the metadata. So it defeats all your existing child safety locks. The person in question who’s using these slurs, I just want to make this point, has never worked in tech. From what I can tell, he’s never even worked in the private sector. And this is the problem. You have MPs and politicians who are frankly dinosaurs do not understand the world that they’re trying to legislate. And the kids whom they are trying to protect running rings around them.”
Kyle has doubled down. Heat on the Science Secretary here – Starmer will have to defend the comments…
Speaking to Sky News off the back of Rachel Reeves’ Air Passenger Duty hike, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said:
“Labour is dependent on those Red Wall seats, and yet every move she makes poisons economic growth and damages the UK’s recovery… it’s the Chancellor who stumbles from policy misstep to policy misstep… I think her policy decisions are incredibly stupid.”