Food influencer Big John says he will no longer vote for Reform UK at the next election after an online row with Zia Yusuf.
The social media star, real name John Fisher, was accused by the former Reform UK Chairman of being a counter signal to fellow Essex native and social media influencer, Tom Skinner. Both Mr Fisher and Mr Skinner are known for their large social media presences and use of the catchphrase “bosh”.
Mr Yusuf posted on X: “Still can’t believe the media found some guy who also says “bosh” and put him everywhere to spread their propaganda and counter signal @iamtomskinner.”
Fans immediately jumped to Big John’s defence, asking how Reform could expect to be taken seriously when they believe the social media star, who reviews Chinese takeaways for a living, “is part of some wider media conspiracy”.
Responding to a fan, he said: “This is spot on. I was actually going to vote reform at the next election as a protest against the big 2 but this shows just how dangerous they are. No thank you @reformparty_uk.”
Mr Fisher, who self describes as “The Boshfather”, defended himself against Mr Yusuf’s claims, pointing out that most of his friends and family were planning to vote for his party in the next election.
“Just shows how out of touch this bloke is most of my friends and family are going to vote reform and he calls me a left wing plant”, he added: “Just because I don’t believe in racial attacks you couldn’t make it up. What a plonker this bloke is.”
He continued that parties from across the political spectrum had reached out to him and he’d rejected meeting them because he didn’t want any role in the politics.
“Is this because I was asked to meet @Nigel_Farage by @reformparty_uk and said no ? Well FYI I was also asked to meet Starmer and said no. I don’t want any part with you politicians. This is why”, he said on X.
Despite originally becoming popular for reviewing takeaways to his audience of 690,000 followers on Instagram, Big John recently made headlines when he defended a Chinese restaurant in Yorkshire that experienced racist vandalism on Newsnight amid the Raise the Colours operation linked to the far right.
“I think the lady had been running it for 15 years, she’s lived here, she’s worked hard,” he said of the Dragon House in Yorkshire. “I’m associated with Chinese takeaways, but I would have felt the same if it had been an Indian, Caribbean, Mexican, Greek, Turkish. People who are working here shouldn’t be targeted like that. No one should be targeted like that.”
“I love my country, I’m a proud Englishman,” he said. “And when you see the flags going up, I can see why people are doing it because a lot of institutions around the country won’t put up the flags, so people are sort of taking it amongst themselves, and there’s normal people doing it. But every now and again it all blows over and you get the isolated incident which isn’t good and that’s upsetting.”
The Independent has contacted Reform UK for comment.
