On Monday, I sat down for a lengthy interview on Spectator TV with Zia Yusuf, the chairman of Reform UK. This weekend, many of his party’s 677 newly-elected councillors will come to London to hear from him on how to make the most of their bridgehead in local government. One thing that Yusuf is clearly thinking hard about is the role of these councillors in crafting Reform’s narrative for 2029. He believes that they will demonstrate that his party is fit to govern and expose the failings of the established parties in office.
Much of his focus will be fighting the Home Office in court to stop asylum-seekers being put up in Reform–controlled areas. ‘We’ve got a great group of lawyers, led by a KC, who are working for free, completely pro-bono, from their chambers in order to bring cases to resist the dispersal of illegal migrants’, he said. Yusuf is realistic about this: ‘Yvette Cooper is able to do things that no one in local government can – but even by having the fight, Reform will show how taxpayers’ money is being spent on forcing councils to billet illegal migrants.
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