The chairman of Reform UK has appeared to brand the party’s newest MP “dumb” for asking Sir Keir Starmer to introduce a burqa ban.
Sarah Pochin, the new Runcorn and Helsby MP, used her first PMQs question to call on the prime minister to ban burqas “in the interest of public safety”.
She said: “Given the prime minister’s desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he, in the interest of public safety, follow the lead of France, Belgium, Denmark and others and ban the burqa?”
Sir Keir welcomed Ms Pochin to the Commons, but said “I am not going to follow her down that line”.
Now, Reform chair Zia Yusuf has said it was “dumb for a party to ask the prime minister if they would do something the party itself wouldn’t do”.
He said he “had no idea about the question nor that it wasn’t [Reform] policy”.
A Reform spokesman later clarified that banning burqas was not party policy, sparking calls from the far-right for Mr Farage to adopt the proposals.
Mr Yusuf’s comments are only the latest pointer to infighting within Reform’s ranks.
Reform has already lost one MP since the general election, with Rupert Lowe having been forced out amid an investigation into bullying claims and the party reporting him to the police over alleged threats made towards Mr Yusuf. The investigation was later dropped with no further action taken.
That came after he spoke out publicly against Mr Farage’s leadership of the party, accusing the arch-Brexiteer of having “messianic” tendencies.
There has been infighting between Reform’s top team and its councillors, too, with one quitting just days after last month’s local elections with a brutal attack on Mr Farage.
Donna Edmunds, who was elected in Hodnet, in Shropshire, was initially suspended for writing on X, formerly Twitter, that she was planning to defect from the party after the local elections.
She responded by quitting the party and warning that Mr Farage “must never be prime minister” and is a “terrible leader”.
Asked on Wednesday night about Ms Pochin’s comments on the burqa, Mr Farage said he would welcome a broader debate about face coverings in public.
He told GB News: “I think this debate, actually, goes beyond the burqa… I was in Aberdeen Monday, there was a mob there to meet me, an organisation called Antifa, and half of them had complete face coverings on so they would be unidentifiable.
“I don’t think face coverings in public places make sense, and I think we do deserve debate about that, which I see the burqa as being a part.”
Reform UK and Ms Pochin were contacted for comment.
