Zia Yusuf sparked a furious antisemitism row with Tory Robert Jenrick yesterday (fri), after the Reform politician appeared to \u2018like\u2019 a social media post attacking Mr Jenrick\u2019s Jewish wife.<\/p>\n
A member of the former party chairman\u2019s team liked a post from a far-right social media account which used antisemtic and racist terminology.<\/p>\n
Following inquiries by the Express, Mr Yusuf posted a statement to X apologising explaining it had been accidental.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cOne of the team who post to my X account accidentally pressed like on an awful antisemitic tweet earlier today. I apologise for this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Yusuf said a derogatory reference to \u201cbrown\u201d people \u201cis equally racist against me. Clearly it was not intentional.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cThe amount of antisemitism and racism on this platform is spiralling out of control, and I hope that changes soon.\u201d<\/p>\n
However Mr Jenrick, the Tory MP for Newark, hit back and called for him to be ousted from the party, replying: \u201cI call bulls**t. You\u2019ve spent the last 48 hours calling me a \u2018traitor\u2019 for not drawing attention to a leaked spreadsheet with our special forces and MI6 officers\u2019 names on.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut we\u2019re meant to believe this tweet attacking me as a traitor for having a Jewish wife & family was liked \u2018accidentally\u2019 by \u2018one of the team.\u2019 You must think we\u2019re all thick.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo. 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Yusuf has come under increasing criticism for his social media behaviour, with former Home Secretary Suella Braverman\u2019s husband Rael revealing he had quit the party this week \u201cbecause I cannot be in a party \u2018led\u2019 by Zia Yusuf\u201d.<\/p>\n
Mr Yusuf had furiously attacked Ms Braverman for failing to reveal the Afghanistan data leak and secret resettlement scheme by using parliamentary privilege to circumvent the super-injunction.<\/p>\n
Yesterday (fri) the former Reform chief, who now heads up the party\u2019s waste-cutting \u2018DOGE\u2019 unit at local government level, was also forced to admit that his initiative is unlikely to lead to council tax cuts.<\/p>\n
Mr Yusuf said council tax reductions are \u201cnot going to happen\u201d due to the rising cost of social care, despite his efforts to cut unnecessary spending.<\/p>\n
Reform UK was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n
Concluding his reply with an emoji of a clown, he asked: \u201cCome to think of it, who was Secretary of State for Housing?\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Yusuf\u2019s question was quickly answered by Mr Jenrick, who fanned the flames of the row by promoting his record at the Ministry of Housing.<\/p>\n
He boasted: \u201cI got housing starts to their highest level since 1987. I fought tooth and nail to cut migration and secured the biggest ever reduction.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid the last government do enough? No. That\u2019s why I resigned. But enough about me. Why do your own colleagues call you Zia Useless?\u201d<\/p>\n
Reform UK referred the Express to Mr Yusuf\u2019s response when contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Zia Yusuf sparked a furious antisemitism row with Tory Robert Jenrick yesterday (fri), after the Reform politician appeared…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[299,3854,59,57,58,50,3852,3855,56,54,55,3853],"class_list":["post-6654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-anti-semitism","tag-antisemitism","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-robert-jenrick","tag-social-media-controversy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-zia-yusuf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}