Reform's Zia Yusuf says Jeremy Corbyn is worse than Tommy Robinson
Reform's Zia Yusuf says Jeremy Corbyn is worse than Tommy Robinson
Reform UK's head of policy, Zia Yusuf, has claimed former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is worse than far-right anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson.
Yusuf made the shocking remarks in an event with Michael Gove, the former Conservative cabinet minister and editor of the Spectator magazine, at Reform's annual conference in Birmingham.
Gove asked Yusuf whether he thought Corbyn, an independent MP, or Robinson, was worse.
"Jeremy Corbyn is absolutely the worst," Yusuf responded.
The nom-de-guerre of former tanning salon owner Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, Robinson has over the past two decades built a violent street movement focused on intimidating the British Muslim community and stoking fears of an Islamic takeover of the UK.
He has received prison sentences and community orders since 2003 for, among other things, football brawling, travelling on another man's passport to the US, mortgage fraud, possession of drugs, threatening behaviour and breach of a court order.
In 2021, he lost a libel lawsuit over his slurs against a Syrian schoolboy who was filmed being attacked at school. In a video posted on Facebook, Robinson had claimed the boy "violently attacks young English girls in his school" - comments for which he was sued.
Yusuf went on to say that Corbyn had "refused to say" he would "use a nuclear deterrent... rendering our entire Trident [nuclear] programme null and void".
The politician, who has previously called himself a "British Muslim patriot", then turned to praising Robinson.
"Tommy Robinson has said things about the rape gangs and was making those arguments for years," Yusuf declared, "and was disparaged and has been proven correct, and deserves some credit for that".
There was a large round of applause from among the approximately 300 members of the audience, which largely consisted of Reform members.
Gove then asked Yusuf whether Robinson would be allowed to join the party.
"No," Yusuf replied.
'It's a Muslim invasion of Europe'
Robinson said in 2016 that "I'm not far-right…I'm just opposed to Islam. I believe it's backward and it's fascist.
"The current refugee crisis is nothing to do with refugees. It's a Muslim invasion of Europe."
Corbyn, who led the Labour party between 2015 and 2020, is today the key figure in the establishment of a new left-wing party who has been heavily critical of Reform.
In a recent interview with Middle East Eye, he laid out principles which he said are behind the left-wing party. The first is peace: "Therefore, no bombs to Israel to drop on Gaza, for example."
The other principles "are about economic justice within our society. They are about dealing with the worst vestiges of poverty within our society".
"They are about environmental sustainability, and they are about public ownership of public service," Corbyn says.
"But it's also about the kind of creativity and democracy we are," he adds. "So when you bring people together in a creative endeavour, through local forums and grassroots democracy, you defeat the far right, you defeat the racists.
He issued a warning to Reform leader Nigel Farage.
"Nigel Farage needs to be very aware that we're out there and we're offering something different, which he can't. We're offering hope."
MEE has contacted Corbyn for comment.
In June Yusuf resigned as Reform's chairman in a shock move following a public row with Reform MP Sarah Pochin after she urged a ban on women wearing the burqa in a parliamentary debate.
But he rejoined the party just days later as the head of its department of government efficiency, saying his resignation had been a mistake.
Farage announced on Friday that Yusuf is now Reform's policy chief.
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