Nigel Farage is facing calls to sack his right-hand man Zia Yusuf after the senior Reform UK figure said that a member of his team “accidentally pressed like” on an antisemitic post which attacked the wife of Tory MP Robert Jenrick.
The former Reform chair, who now heads the party’s Doge unit, has apologised for the incident, which comes after an anonymous X user posted a video that appeared to show Mr Yusuf liking a tweet which said: “Reminder that Jenrick is a traitorous Zogbot with a Jewish wife and family. I’m sure it’s unrelated that he imported infinite brown savages to rape our women and children.”
Zogbot is a derogatory term for a Zionist.
The anonymous account that shared the screen recording of Mr Yusuf’s interaction with the post described it as “absolutely horrifying antisemitism”.
Since last summer, likes on X have been privatised, so that only the liker and the poster can see them, rather than a wider audience.
In response, Mr Jenrick said he “called bull****” and pointed out that Mr Yusuf had been calling him a “traitor” for the previous 48 hours over the Afghan data breach in what had become an ugly spat.
The shadow justice minister claimed “the mask has slipped” and urged Reform to sever ties with Mr Yusuf.
Mr Yusuf responded with an apology after critics of the former Reform UK chair picked up the criticism to demand that he be sacked by Mr Farage.
In his statement, he said: “One of the team who post to my X account accidentally pressed like on an awful antisemitic tweet earlier today. I apologise for this.”
He added: “The post also refers to ‘brown savages’, and is equally racist against me. Clearly it was not intentional.
“The amount of antisemitism and racism on this platform is spiralling out of control, and I hope that changes soon.”
But responding, Mr Jenrick claimed he did not believe Mr Yusuf’s explanation.
In a post directed at Mr Yusuf, he said: “I call bull****. You’ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a ‘traitor’ for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers’ names on.
“But we’re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife and family was liked ‘accidentally’ by ‘one of the team.’ You must think we’re all thick.
“No. The mask has slipped. Likes are private. You thought nobody would ever know. Unfortunately for you, the racist account who posted the tweet and could see the likes exposed you. Reform should give you the boot.”
Mr Yusuf has been a controversial figure in Reform after he helped fund its general election campaign before being brought in as chair to modernise the party.
He was blamed by supporters of Rupert Lowe for the Great Yarmouth MP being ousted from Reform but had the full backing of Mr Farage.
Mr Yusuf then temporarily resigned from the party after having a spat with Reform’s recently elected Runcorn MP Sarah Pochin, after she asked a question in PMQs calling for the burqa to be banned.
He returned 24 hours later but was replaced as chair by long-term Farage ally Dr David Bull and instead agreed to head its Doge unit, modelled on the one Elon Musk created for Donald Trump, which aims to find savings and cut costs in councils Reform won control of in May.
