Without Yusuf, Farage will find it even harder to increase Reform’s popularity

Nigel Farage had brought in Zia Yusuf, left, as chair to help build Reform UK. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

At Reform UK’s conference last September, Nigel Farage could not have been more clear: his party had to “model ourselves on the Liberal Democrats” and painstakingly build an election-winning machine. This was always a tough ask and with Zia Yusuf gone it becomes harder still.

At the time of the speech in Birmingham, Yusuf had been Reform’s chair for slightly over two months, and Farage was at pains to praise the millionaire entrepreneur for having “already made a massive difference to our level of professionalisation”.