Contra Yusuf

Rhodes Napier

The recent defence of Yusuf by Bukes is typical of the shitposting he has engaged since his joining of X. As a figure, he squarely belongs to the purgatorial period of British politics between the 2016 leave vote and the beginning of lockdown, in which post-liberal concerns about 'somewheres' and 'anywheres' were effusively embraced by the 'nationalist' right. At this point, I recall that much online activity centred around 'oak and ash and thorn' political quietism, which emphasised the need to reconnect with our 'folkish' culture before we could countenance real action.

Bukes, with his 'deep England coded' McDowell avi, belongs to this tradition. What remains consistent in his latterly defence of Yusuf is the contrived defence of politically counter-intuitive positions, with the motivation of attention seeking as well as to further what are essentially anti-political paradigms. Where once we were told to eschew nationalist activism in favour of community politics, we are now being told to reject 'armchair racism' and bigotry in favour of the technocratic wunderkind Yusuf.

I say all of this not as a personal attack on him, but to simply to say that his advocacy of 'Zianism' should be understood in this context; an ultimately contrived defence of a man who has little good and much harm to the British right. This being said, I will counter his arguments one by one on their own terms, as it is important to elucidate good people as to the dangers of Yusuf, who might otherwise be taken in by a well written but largely unsubstantiated article.

Zia Yusuf we are told, simply by dint of his ethnicity, has weeded out 'armchair racists' and provided 'organic quality control' for the party. As a matter of principle it is actually reasonable to object to someone from outside the political nation leading an ostensibly nationalist organisation; for example I don't think Chinese nationalists would be unwarranted in not wanting an ethnic Swede to be the chairman of their party. We want to be represented by people like us, but also believe reasonably that people of very recent and conspicuously alien extraction might have different interests to us, or at the very least might be less than willing to defend our own.

But even parking this objection to one side, simply on the practical level, abruptly jettisoning loyalists in favour of a left leaning Muslim Tamil is not 'good' politics. While Reform's base are not dogmatically racialist in outlook, most do not like Islam and (even if socially repressed from articulating this) do not like taking orders from someone who is very different from them, or at least can't situated into a comfortably familiar cultural archetype. Wealthy, corporate oriented and culturally distinct South Asians, while often superficially Anglicised, sit awkwardly within the wider context of Britain's class system. They aren't objects of amusement or deference and, as the case of Rishi Sunak demonstrates, find it difficult to organically navigate social interactions with White British people outside of their own social milieus. This isn't true of people like Ben Habib, because he is an Anglo-Pakistani who was educated at Rugby in the '60s and seems to practice some type of syncretic Anglican-Islam. Its not an objection to ethnic 'otherness' per se, but the degree of it, which is more considerable in the case of Zia, made all the more conspicuous because of the seniority of his position.

My own perspective on why Yusuf was appointed to the position he holds is because he functions like Balkan vizier in a Sultan’s court - he can never challenge Farage and indeed owes his entire loyalty to him, because he is so different from the membership and supporters of the party he chairs, that any potential challenge would be easily overcome. He is thus the ideal proxy for Farage to control the party and blame for unpopular disciplinary moves.

Yusuf's background also links to various impolitic events in his so far short career. There is most recently his outbursts at Reform's (newest) MP Sarah Pochin's proposal to ban the burqa, which seems to have triggered an identarian id in this supposedly assimilated Muslim; breaking ranks and overstepping his essentially administrative role as party chairman, furiously declared it wasn't party policy. This was obviously unprofessional as it was not his responsibility to discipline the parliamentary party, but it also portends further spats down the line. If Reform becomes a party of 322 MPs, many of whom will be to the right of Pochin, then he is likely to enter frequent conflict with White British representatives who are unsympathetic to the Islamisation of the country. Once again, Yusuf is drawn into conflict because of his background; it is not in any respects an asset to the party and in the future will most likely be a significant liability as it grows.

Of course, more critically there was his engineering of the fallout with Lowe. Contrary to the claim that Lowe, by questioning Farage's leadership precipitated his expulsion, most evidence suggests that Yusuf, at Farage's behest, was planning a premeditated attack on him. Indeed the fact that an entirely spurious bullying allegation was hastily launched against Lowe, involving Yusuf's decision to call the police on him, suggests that an offensive had been in the works for sometime.

While this episode can't be entirely attributed to Yusuf's background, it is problematic that a second-generation Goldman Sachs' employee was attempting to defenestrate a farmer and independent businessman, a profoundly English archetype. It appeared grotesquely unfair because it was, and also signalled to the ideological base of the party that the leadership holds them in contempt. We can contrast this with America's MAGA movement, the core of which Trump adorns with affection and encouragement. In its haphazard race for respectability, Reform does actually risk taking for granted its base support.

Beyond the broad issue of ethnicity Yusuf's credentials as a 'moderniser' are themself questionable. The claim of Bukes' article that Yusuf is responsible for the party being able to stand in all 1,600 council seats is unsubstantiated and conjectural (we don't know whether an alternative chairman would have been able to have achieved this). What certainly is more absurd is the idea that he is in anyway causally linked to the party's consistent top polling. Reform is winning because it is perceived as the White British party. Ethnic fragmentation and the settlement of migrant rapists in the country would eventually result in any vaguely ''racist'' party gaining significant amounts of support.

'Professionalisation' has probably created new logistical barriers to recruiting candidates and is unnecessary. Reform's support isn't linked to the quality of candidates but rather to the role it now plays in Britain's transitional political landscape, which even goes beyond the persona of Farage. Ultimately, Reform will gain votes simply due to the dearth of any alternative. It's a fallacious confusion of correlation with causation to argue Yusuf has anything to do with it.

Bukes’ concluding argument, that by attacking Yusuf we are on the side of Tories is his most tedious, but is still worth refuting. Logically, just because Tories might object to Yusuf doesn't entail a non-Tory shouldn't, just as much as if a Tory were to proclaim the sky is blue shouldn't entail we proclaim the inverse. Beyond this basic logical error, Bukes’ argument also fails because the Conservative party is already doomed. Predicating your political orientation in opposition to a dying but simultaneously radicalising party, the leader of which has advocated for Danish style ghetto laws and segregated migrant camps, is not only pointless but self-defeating. The Conservative party is not the enemy of the future, it’s already gone. We face greater danger from a Reform government continuing surreptitiously liberal immigration policies than we do from a renewed Tory government. We will weaken our ability to challenge Reform if we give them carte blanche because they don't belong to a dying institutional structure.

Finally, it’s important to discuss Yusuf's own personal character. There is a type of commentator who salivates at the prospect of a South Asian, grown up businessman coming to sort out the White British mess Reform allegedly was prior to Yusuf's ascent. But Yusuf's own track record for professional conduct is dubious. Even supporters like Aaron Banks concede that he is in some sense unsuited to a political life which involves relationship building with people who have a vocational interest in politics. The BBC article linked also describes states that former employees of Velocity Black, the firm that Zia co-founded, was known for being domineering - with one female ex-employee ‘alleging inappropriate conduct’. With the caveat that other employees described him as ‘visionary’ and that Yusuf has denied allegations put forward by the woman in question.

While perhaps Yusuf's cut throat management style is appropriate to a corporate environment in which participants are well paid and profit oriented, the British populist right is often comprised of people who have dedicated years of their lives to movements at a personal cost. Summarily expelling Eurosceptic activists who had been with the party for decades is unlikely to do it good.

Ultimately, the case for Yusuf is vibes based more than anything. He's supposedly a technocrat but there is scant evidence of his technical skills in action. While to be fair he is a confident media presence, this is outweighed considerably by the interpersonal fighting he has triggered within side the party. We are being told to support a man who is not critical to the party's success because 'winning is everything'. Even this ultimate given rationale is weak on its own terms because winning with Reform at the moment looks like the worst of all possible worlds; the superficial amelioration of the worst excesses of the British state but without profound, demographically oriented structural reform. Yusuf's party might buy us a few years and some cheap victories, but it won't save our country.