BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts. Welcome to Political Thinking, a conversation with rather than the interrogation of someone who shapes our political thinking about what has shaped theirs. Which party do you think might guess this week? could possibly be talking about by the time we get to the next general election we will win between 350 to 400 members of parliament that is the man charged by Nigel Farage with professionalising the reform party and yes
He says they're going to win the next election. This in a week when Reform UK went ahead of Labour and the Tories in one opinion poll. Zia Youssef is the chairman of Reform UK. And let's be honest, he's not most people's idea of what a Nigel Farage supporter looks like. He's a young Muslim man, the son of Sri Lankan immigrants, and he studied international relations at the LSE.
Zia Youssef, welcome to Political Thinking. Thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here. What was that moment like? Reform HQ, the news comes through, you've got an office next to Nigel Farage's there. You're ahead in the polls. It's quite a moment. It was a lovely moment. And it's incredibly important, as I said to the team, to enjoy the milestones, you know, on what is going to be a long and no doubt sometimes very challenging journey.
And we'll have- downs will have ups you know some days will be better than others but i think the words enthusiastic the words electric would be the words i'd use to describe the atmosphere in hq but that's exactly how you would describe and characterize the atmosphere at our conferences all of the events we do have are big or small and these days they're obviously getting bigger and bigger so there's a real sense of enthusiasm and optimism about
the reform movement and also what it means for the country because Nick what that means you know the poll you're talking about of course which was the YouGov poll and obviously there's many great pollsters out there but YouGov are considered to be you know the gold standard. It put us not only leading but quite decisively in the lead and meaningfully ahead of the Conservative Party. What it means is one in four British people eligible to vote and who intend to vote.
would now cast their vote for reform, which is a party, remember, that had zero members of parliament seven months ago that to this day still only has 24 employees. I don't think many people necessarily appreciate
just the scale of what has been achieved in a short time. And the people who deserve credit for that, by the way, are the millions upon millions of reform supporters across the country. And you call it a start-up, don't you? And you're an entrepreneur. We're going to talk about your story quite a lot. But your first word sounded to me like you were just being a little cautious, saying to people who work for a form who support it, look, there'll be bad days as well as good. And yet this week...
You said? Reform UK is not just the next party of government, The next one, not one maybe in the future, you said the new natural party of government. That is quite a big claim for a party that doesn't even run a council, let alone a devolve administration, let alone the UK government. Well, let's be clear about what I said, which was that is our goal. That is what we're working towards. You know, clearly today we have five incredible members of parliament.
We are on a journey. And by the way, one thing I learned in business as someone who is a tech entrepreneur, but it's true actually in most aspects of life that momentum and trajectory are much, much more important than absolute position.
And seven months ago, the general election reform won 14% of the votes, 4 million votes, astonishing achievement, returned five MPs. And that's really a function of the first-past-the-post system, which really punishes parties below 20%. But once you get to where we are now...
It starts to act as a massive tailwind. So if you look at most of the MRPs that are coming out, and you'll see this in the coming weeks with MRPs. There's a particular type of pole. There's very big poles, multiple regression poles. which look constituency by constituency. Some say they're more accurate, you know, not everyone. Look, I think there's any doubt if there was to be a general election tomorrow, reform would win somewhere between 140 to 200 seats, you know, depending on the polls.
By the time we get to the next general election, we will win between 350 to 400 members of parliament. We will. You just said the words we will. You've not the faintest clue how many seats you'll win at the next election. You don't even know whether you'd win that many if it were tomorrow because it isn't tomorrow. It's not happening. Polls are not a predictor. They are just a kind of finger in the wind of how I'm feeling today.
clearer-eyed about the scale of the challenge at hand than me. It's when I wake up in the morning thinking about, I speak to Nigel incredibly early in the morning, almost every single day and very late in the evening about these same points and how do we build infrastructure? How do we build a party? And going back to your actual question, which was,
And again, I think it's really important that people understand this about the reform movement. So much of what we do, maybe even the majority of what we do and have been doing over the last seven months. is about laying the foundations for something that will endure for generations to come. We take that really seriously. That's why we put a lot of time and effort into the party constitution, which was ratified by members a few months ago. That document had to be drafted.
conscious that this will be the constitution of the party that we believe will be the constitution of the next party of government, but also one that can govern effectively the party.
as we move through multiple times. So the point is really... The point I want to make is it's a really... What I think you'll make is that Nigel Farage has led all sorts of parties. They've come, they've gone, UKIP, Brexit, reform. You're trying to say, this moment is different. What first... attracted you to this because you were still a member of the Conservative Party last summer.
Yeah, that's right. So I've not been particularly politically active in my adult life. You know, I graduated from the London School of Economics. I did a BSc in international relations. I started my career working in the city for a couple of American investment banks. Did that for about five years, then left that to go and start my own technology company, which I absolutely loved doing. Thankfully, it was quite successful, and I sold that company to a big American bank.
in 2023. Quite successful. You sold a company called Velocity Black for £300 million. When you go on an entrepreneurial journey, you want to... do everything you can to make it successful. But I do really firmly believe this. Was that all the money that you got, the $300 million, or did you have to share that? No, no, we had shareholders. We had shareholders who were incredibly supportive. You got tens of numbers.
The point being is that I will tell you this. I'm thankfully in a position where I no longer need to work for money. That's the first point to make. I've long had the view. I've loved reading history. I love this country. I think social mobility, Nick, is incredibly important. Any student of history will tell you. A society. that doesn't have social mobility is a short-lived society and that's the direction we are headed in. So I think I'm a reasonably good example of social mobility.
I have been long concerned and frankly in some cases disconsolate about the direction of travel of this country. The source of that in many ways is the calibre. of the people in Westminster both from a competency standpoint and from an integrity standpoint and so I thought well if I'm not going to do this I could see there was an inflection point happening last summer when Nigel said he was coming back By the way, I still remember I checked the betting odds just to see.
It's always useful to look at that because there's money at play. They priced Nigel Farage to win his seat in Clacton at 30%. Today they're pricing him. I'm coming back when you say that because people may think he's never gone away. He's been around for a very long time. He had told people he told me on this.
podcast that he probably wouldn't run for parliament again but he decided to run for an eighth time having lost seven times in a row a fact that i often remind him of which he doesn't much welcome when i remind him of that but that is what drew you back I understand that. Before we go on to your
story and your values. We do want to talk about your background and why you feel as passionately you do about social mobility. Let's just deal with the business, first of all. You're in tech, you said. Your company's called Velocity Black. It has a slogan, helping high-performance people live extraordinary lives. What does that mean? Well, as somebody who worked all my career, I've worked incredibly long hours, right?
whether it was in the city or then obviously anyone who's listening to this who's run their own company knows that job never ends. You're on the clock all of the time. So you have precious little time actually to do almost anything else. And I think to live a life
Ultimately, I think life is about looking back on your life at the end and saying, that's a life I'm glad that I lived. And there are so many aspects to that. And so a lot of what we tried to do with our business was cater for that person who has. has resources, but very, very little time. And I saw these people who's familiar... So the cliche is they're time poor and money...
Exactly, and so what we tried to do was create a customer experience that worked for them, that allowed them to take holidays, for example. I mean, that was a big piece of it, and I hear that feedback from customers all of the time. So that's what that business focused on. They did some quite special, unusual things. Yeah, absolutely.
Well, most of the business's revenues came from actually booking flights for people and booking hotels and things like that. But yeah, there were some very cool and quite extraordinary things that people could book through the app, yeah. What were your favorites?
Well, there was one which was one of the most interesting, so people loved wildlife experiences. So, for example, there was a... trip to go uh guerrilla trekking actually in the congo with our former marines and that was a really cool experience swimming with orcas in norway i see yeah yeah there's um operators that have been doing that for decades. Dinner inside one of the pyramids?
Yeah, that's possible as well. Live for a day like an Iron Man. How do you live for a day like an Iron Man if you're not an Iron Man? Well, I've not done that experience, but the point being... How many thousands of pounds would I have to pay to live for a day like an Ironman? Probably tens of thousands. Tens of thousands? Those experiences were costly, yeah. I had hundreds of thousands?
No, I don't think so. But expensive. Yeah. So being an entrepreneur, that's one of the reasons you are attractive, I think, to Nigel Farage. And the other is to use a phrase that you've used to describe yourself. You describe yourself as a proud British Muslim patriot. So that brings us to your story and your parents' story because you're a second generation immigrant. Your parents came here from Sri Lanka in the 1980s. Why did they come here? What brought them here?
Well, my father wanted to try to create a better life i think for uh for my mom uh and ultimately for uh at the time they had one child my older brother and so i think it was that very archetypal uh immigrant story and you know he'd qualified as a medical doctor
My parents, between them, have given half a century of service to the NHS, so the NHS is very close to my heart. So you had a paediatrician, your mum a nurse? My mum a nurse, yeah, and she's locked in care home, and she's still... practices as a nurse to this day at age 70 and you could not you know i still remember talking to my mom when she would be
She was earning £21,000 a year. And I said, you should go and ask for a pay rise because you haven't had one in many years. And she'd always say, see ya.
I would much rather they spent that money on more medicines or better care for the patients. And that's the mentality of a caregiver. And I think that is representative of our frontline NHS workers. So I know... frankly the appalling conditions in which they've had to work and by the way I'd often tell my mum well actually unfortunately that money is not going to go
for more medicines or anything like that. It's going to go to more extraordinarily well paid NHS administrators who are failing at their jobs. This is interesting. I often ask people this on political thinking. Did you have those debates? When you were a child was yours the sort of house in which you'd read the paper or watch the TV news list on the radio and have an argument About what was going on in the world or was politics very much?
out there somewhere in between moderately so politics did come up we weren't a hugely political family as I said I've always been very interested in history I remember when I got my GCSE results I got a prize from the headmaster which was Neil Ferguson's book Empire which I absolutely loved and wolfed down very quickly but I think
Politics has been something that we've talked about. A lot of it has been about the NHS, just because that was obviously what my parents focused on. And because I came at it from a slightly different perspective, they came at it purely from the caregiver perspective. I came at it more from a... try to look at things at a systems level and look at incentives and when I hear the stories
Your right wing and their left wing, is that what you mean? No, well, so when I was a student, I would describe myself as very much centre-left. And, you know, when I was younger, probably even more left. You know, when you're a young person, you often have this... sense that you have all of the answers to all of the world's problems and I don't think I was by any means unique in that.
But what I do think has happened, bringing us to where we are today, you know, I often describe this Labour cabinet as a bunch of over-promoted student politicians. You know, most people who then go out and do real jobs in the real world, regardless of what those jobs are. gradually start to understand incentives and understand how the real world actually works and have a good model of that.
Unfortunately, because this Labour cabinet has spent 14 years in opposition, none of these ideas that they have in their head, regardless of how smart or not they are, fundamentally, have ever been tested and unfortunately now they're being tested with the British people as guinea pigs. Let's talk more about you rather than them if you don't mind which is you get this book of Professor Neil Ferguson It's quite a bookie house yours I get the sense. It's a house in which education really matters.
Indeed, so my parents didn't have much in the way of resources, but they gave me a lot of love. They gave me education, which I'm extraordinarily grateful for. And I think those things are both incredibly important to create social mobility. Were you reading Harry Potter? I did read the Harry Potter books. I read those myself before going to bed, so that was the thing that I did.
I still remember, for example, my mother would, four times a week, without fail, and there were no excuses allowed, I had to read with her a chapter of the children's encyclopedia. A whole chapter? Yeah, yeah. So it would be, well, specifically about a single thing. So, you know, for example, I still, for some reason, yaks are burnt into my memory. You know, the fact that they can live, you'll find them at 10,000 feet above sea level in the Himalayas. They can survive.
temperatures 40 degrees below freezing extraordinary animals and you know the point about this was they really enshrined in me from a very early age how important education was. I think there are more yak facts there, aren't there? You can memorize these things. You've got more yak facts. Those are the two that immediately still come to mind despite the decades that have passed. But I look back on those days.
really fondly. My mother's an extraordinary person. She is the ultimate caregiver. I'm still very close to her. I'm very proud of her. And, you know, that also came through in the sacrifices they made to send me to, you know, I went to an independent school, I won an academic scholarship, which meant the fees were reduced by 50% for me.
You went to quite a posh school. It was a wonderful school. Hampton School, £28,000 a year. I looked it up this morning. It's gone up a lot more. It was even adjusted for inflation. The fees have gone up a lot, which is not a great thing, I think. But it was an amazing school.
school I absolutely loved it there I'm very grateful to have gone there but both my parents worked two jobs at the time because they were doing their main jobs and doing locums and they took out a second mortgage to be able to send me there which again brings us back to the VAT that has now been placed on independence. That would have taken that task for my parents beyond their capabilities and would have sent my life in a different direction. Understood. That's a perfectly reasonable point.
you're clear that your language you're a British patriot and your parents are very committed to this country too but was there something Sri Lankan you got from them from that culture Yeah, I think so. I think we're all obviously a product of... our parents in many ways, and that Sri Lanka's an incredible country. It's a very small country, but it's full of people with unbelievable spirits.
Highly recommend going there on holiday. And generally people who've gone, they say, Zia, the thing that struck me wasn't actually the natural beauty. It was incredible. but it was the spirit of the people. They're so friendly. And despite many of them not having much in terms of means, and I actually remember, obviously, it was a country, number one, ravaged by civil war over decades, tragically.
The biggest tragedy was the tsunami, if you remember. I think it was 2004. And I remember being on the east coast of the country where my mother is from. And it was in the aftermath and there were FEMA tents everywhere. And we were walking around doing what we could to help a little bit. And there was a woman there who was a mother.
And she had this huge grin on her face. She was incredibly jovial and laughing and smiling. She was holding a baby. It must have been one or two years old. And I remember asking her, do you mind me asking why you're so jolly? Obviously, this has been a very tragic time. And she said because And it was very moving. She said it was because of the tsunami God took away my husband and my two sons.
he spared my daughter and I thought no matter how tough life gets To have that sort of perspective on life and that sense of gratitude, I suppose, is something I can only dream of and aspire to because unfortunately I often get quite frustrated over quite...
small things but i thought that was incredible and it summed up the spirit of an incredible country and i do think my parents um represent that and i think i hope um some of that has rubbed off on me you know what i think when i'm hearing you Two parents working in the NHS. Second generation immigrant. They saved up and worked hard to go to a public school. Do you know who I'm thinking of?
I could have a guess. Sat in that chair in the past. Rishi Sunak. Yours is the story of Rishi Sunak in many ways. Or maybe his is your story. This is very, very similar. Yeah, perhaps. I mean, look, I've never met Rishi Sunak. I actually don't doubt that he's a decent man and that he tried his best in that job. I think that...
Frankly, if you're governing a party that had just been through so many prime ministers in a short period of time and half your party are Lib Dems and half of them are small-c conservatives, I think you're never going to succeed. There were many other issues I think there. But look, I can talk about my story and the reason why I'm here, the reason why I do this as a volunteer. I work 12, 15 hours a day, seven days a week doing this with everything I've got.
is because I love the country. And I do think a country that has been so kind to me, a country that has given me these opportunities. You know, I'm often, it's funny, when I first entered British politics, I would often get asked by interviewers in broadcast oh well aren't you just trying to so we talk about wanting to freeze migration for a few years and stop the vote and say as a second generation immigrant aren't you just trying to pull the ladder up from behind you and
I always find that really interesting because invariably that's a white liberal interviewer asking me that question. It wasn't a question I had planned to ask. No, no, exactly. No, no, no. I'm not going to ask it now. No. I'll tell you what I am going to ask you is when you talk of loving the country. Yeah. It's interesting because of that phrase I quoted that you used in the first speech that meant that many people noticed you beyond Reform UK. That phrase, proud British Muslim patriot.
You've talked about the love of your country. You've talked of your pride in the country. Are you proud of being a Muslim? Yeah, I am. Is it an important part of your upbringing? Yes, it is. I think my faith is important to me. I think, like all people of faith, A...
We try our best, but it is totally separate to my professional life. Always has been, always will be. And I think when you're formulating policy, Really importantly, it should not form any part of your assessment of what the right policies are for a country, which, by the way, encompasses many faiths and obviously an incredibly large and growing number of people who would not subscribe to a faith.
Do you fast during Ramadan? Yeah, I do. But again, look, I do have a very strong view about this, that anyone who tries their best is always in great... Or it's a great concern that they could do more, if that makes sense. So I'm certainly not going to sit here and make any claims about being incredibly observant. But my faith is important to me, and I try my best. You'd have a niftile meal in the evening. Your first name is Mohammed, indeed. Did you ever use that?
No, no, I never have. You've always been Zia. Yeah, yeah, I have been. But the point about that is that that's quite common, actually, that that name, it serves more, actually, culturally as a middle name in most Muslim countries. I always do this for two reasons. One is this programme is about the values that underpin people's lives, so it's interesting in and of itself. But you know it's interesting for another reason. because Nigel Farage has in a way suffered.
rightly or wrongly you might think, from the perception that the parties he's led, and he's led more than one, more than two indeed, have been anti-Muslim. When you were appointed Somebody tweeted I voted reform to get Britain back for the British not for it to be led by a Muslim. I'm resigning my membership tomorrow. Did you get a lot of When I became chairman, we had about 60,000 members.
As we speak today, we've got north of over 195 thousand members that's happened in seven months um so you know people say all sorts of things on social media but
The overall trajectory of the party's membership has been unbelievable. I'd actually say... pretty much without precedent and in a sense if that guy did resign and if others did resign is is there you probably wouldn't be as crude as this but is there a certain bit of well good riddance we've got lots of other people on board why should we care off you go the irony about people who level those at things against Nigel.
is that nobody has done more to actually... suppress and ultimately eliminate the actual far right, which does exist but is very small in number in this country, than him.
you know with the BNP and things like that and so I know Nigel just spell the argument out because it's an interesting argument and people incidentally used to make this argument to Margaret Thatcher in the late 70s you're saying that by an inverted commas, I think you're saying, is this right, a mainstream politician who articulates the worries that ordinary people have. In a sense he makes it harder for the BNP or for Tommy Robinson or for others.
Well, to be more precise than that, we were talking earlier about how important what we're doing with reform will last for generations and making sure that the structure is right. People may or may not know that UKIP, obviously Nigel was the leader of UKIP, and then in the end he stepped away from UKIP because he was actually very unhappy and took a very principled stand against figures from the actual far right entering that party in a senior way.
Nigel does not care what religion you follow. He doesn't care whether you follow any religion at all. He stands up for British people and the interests of British people. It's what he's done for decades. that's the thing that attracted me to him, to his politics and to this party. And he's sometimes asked about this, as you know, and he said in an interview before the election, we've got a growing number of young people in this country who do not subscribe to British values.
who in fact loathe much of what we stand for. and most people thought they knew what he meant. But that particular conversation was about a specific study. in which a cohort of young Muslim men were asked about their views, I think, on Hamas, I think was the study. Trevor Phillips, who was doing the interview, said, we're talking about Muslims here, Mr. Farage. And he said, We are.
Nigel was being very precise and specific talking about the study, which was correct. That was exactly what the study... Now, by the way, Nick, we cannot solve the problems this country faces. if we're not allowed to talk about certain things. You know, the vast majority of Muslims in this country, and I say this as a Muslim, love this country and are just going about their lives and doing important work all over the place. But is there a problem?
with some areas with regards to extremism. Is there a problem in some segments of that community where we're not getting the assimilation that we needed to get? Absolutely. And Nigel is the only politician even... brave enough to actually have these conversations. I'm a big believer that numbers are numbers. We should be able to talk about data however uncomfortable it may look. Now, it's interesting for another reason, which is if you've said in an overused phrase
Mine, not yours, by the way. You've been on something of a journey, politically, that you've described yourself as having been left-wing when you were a young man. You actually marched against the Iraq War. You were part of that big march on the streets of London. Why were you there? Because I... could tell even back then that there was no real reason to go to war in Iraq. I thought it was going to be.
a disaster. And look, you can debate, is that right-wing or left-wing? I mean, it was Tony Blair that took us to war with Alastair Campbell, remember? And as far as I remember, he was a Labour Prime Minister. So I don't think it was a right- or a left-wing thing. I think that it was totally wrong. Obviously, history has... vindicated that position. So that's why I was there. And you went with your dad on that Iraq march.
Were you in lockstep politically then? Because you've said that now you don't think you did vote reform at the last election. He's not supporting your party. No, I actually don't know who. My dad's very principled. He won't tell me. There's a secret ballot. I won't tell you who... I won't tell you if he was supporting the party or chairman of... I actually don't know. I don't know that he would. I mean, look, he's been generally quite a left-wing person over the years, and...
You know, my mother voted reform, tells everyone to vote for reform. Every few hours she's sending me on WhatsApp, in our family group, WhatsApp chat, a YouTube video. something or the other around reform. So she's a huge fan. But look, ultimately, regardless of where you, my relationship with my parents has always been one.
of deep love, of deep respect. I'm very grateful for everything they did for me. But one thing about my father, for example, where maybe that slightly centre-right, centre-left thing came out a bit was, as a paediatrician, he has never, ever done private work. Ever. Even when he had to do other work and things, he would always ensure that he turned down opportunities to earn more money. And the view he took was, oh, well, you know, we shouldn't have two tiers of...
health, and I have enormous respect for that. I've always had huge respect. Well, I think, you know, my view is that Number one, the NHS is broken. We can get into that if we want. But in terms of how I'd speak to my father about it, I always took the view that, well, I would feel bad.
Once I got to the point, this wasn't always the case for me, where I could afford private medical insurance, I would feel bad taking bed space away from somebody. That was exactly it. I always took that view. Most people who take that view also think we might as well. pay to go to see the doctor pay to go to hospital like they do in lots of countries like they do in France and
Ireland and elsewhere. Again, if you want to talk about reformist position, it was, is that the AHS will always remain free at the point of view. But in terms of, you know, philosophically, yeah, look, that was my view and but he's always been very principled I'll ask you about your position because Nigel Farage has always been clear he's in favour of people paying to go to see the Doctor so I'm asking who are you
I think it's incredibly important, and this is Nigel's view. I mean, as someone who speaks to Nigel about 50 times a day, The NHS must remain and will remain free at the point of view. Forgive me, that isn't his view, because he sat in that chair and he told me what his view was, which is he thought that a European-style health service would be better than the NHS in which people pay. So he now says,
that he's in favour of the NHS, but he was very, very, very clear before that policy was developed, that he was in favour of people paying to see the doctor. Sure, but now he is, number one, the leader of reform, number two, he is the bookmaker's favourite to be the next Prime Minister. And he could not have been clear about what our policy position is. And everyone listening to this, it's really important that they understand. The journey. Because it's an interesting one. Political journey.
You're supporting Obama, you're on the Iraq war march, which as you fairly say doesn't determine where you are on the political spectrum, but you are now an enthusiastic cheerleader for Donald Trump. Do you think his policies and his approach, is that what we need in Britain, a dose of that?
So the first thing I would say is you can admire somebody and even consider somebody a friend, not that I'm friends with President Trump, but for the purposes of this point, even somebody you're close friends with, you're not going to agree on everything. So that's the first point. Reform and Nigel are not...
spokespeople for the White House. But I will say this, what a thing it was to see a political leader firstly come back from where he came back from you know with all of those indictments and all of those things um attempts on his life at least two possibly three uh one within a whisker obviously of ending his life and to come back and win number one i mean that is just something that is To be admired. You've had a flavour. You were at the inauguration.
I was in Washington because they scaled back the size of the audience. I wasn't in the actual room, unfortunately. You were in town for the moment. Yeah, I would have been there were it not for that. And there was a big party, we know, that supporters of Nigel... And did you meet some of the key guys? The energy, there were senators and congressmen.
You have Pete Hegseth, who was the incoming defense secretary. And that was a really fascinating and quite inspiring event because he came up on stage and he said, listen, under President Trump's direction. The Department of Defense and American forces will now revive the warrior spirit and war will always be the very last resort. And a lot of people forget this fact under Donald Trump. America didn't go to war on a voluntary basis anywhere.
Far fewer people were killed as a result of American bombs than, for example, happened under Obama, who obviously used drones a lot. People seem to forget these things. Peace through strength works. And he said, while war will always be the very last resort,
when American troops have to fight, they will fight to win. And it's that spirit of saying, we're going to stand up for the interests of our people and then look at how much he got done I mean I tweeted out the other day President Trump whether you agree with what he's doing or not he came to power with a mandate he said what he was going to do he got more done in the first 14 days
than the Tories got done in 14 years. I'm slightly surprised that you're saying, well, I like the way he does things, but not necessarily everything he does, because you tweeted as well, President Trump's victory represents the rejection of open borders. socialist economics woke ideology net zero fanaticism and DEI diversity equality and inclusion by right thinking people in America the UK is next yes you're not correct
You're not saying those sorts of things to GB News and then coming on the BBC and saying something slightly different, right? I'm saying exactly the same thing. I think all of those things were absolutely pivotal to President Trump winning, number one. And then you may see, we will have seen that signing ceremony throwing us pen into the crowd. Now that we don't have executive orders, but I'll tell you, we are working really hard behind the scenes to ensure that when Nigel's the prime minister,
First of all, we need to make sure he's got a sizable majority so he can get the things done that are important, but that we can get done in the first 30 days a large part of what the country will need. And it will be absolutely those things you just mentioned. You said you met senators. You certainly saw the new or incoming defence secretary. Did you meet Elon Musk? I didn't know. He did meet with other people at Nigel's party.
So, Elon, I've never met Elon. I'm a huge admirer of his, mainly because I'm a tech entrepreneur. And if you're a tech entrepreneur, I think he is the greatest entrepreneur of all time, actually by some distance, not just because obviously he's extraordinarily wealthy, but the... scale and the type of the challenges he's taken on, you know.
building an electric car and manufacturing one that was viable and people loved building the charging ecosystem Neuralink and then putting creating reusable rockets doing that at the same time as someone who's raised venture capital gone out and tried to be and been an entrepreneur I can tell you I have a pretty good understanding of how ridiculously incredible those achievements are now if
And except it isn't if he or indeed any other very rich individual from abroad wanted to give millions of pounds to a political party in this country, would that be okay? Or do you understand how some people who would use the language you use about being a British patriot would feel a bit uncomfortable about it?
Yeah, I can understand those concerns. And I would say, number one, we're going to play by the rules. At Reform, we're not a pressure group. We're here to win. We need to win. Nigel needs to be the Prime Minister. We need 350 to 400 incredible Reform MPs. to transform the country. Do you want Elon Musk's money in order to make that happen? If Elon Musk, who knows if he will or he won't, but if he was to make a donation and it was within the rules,
and it helped us win, then why not? But I will say this too. Well, why not? Because some people might think that foreign wealthy people should not be able to play a part in buying an election in a different country. And they should change the rules for everybody because, you know, Labour have taken millions of pounds from people who...
who are based abroad, for example, and they've done it through companies. So if a German tech entrepreneur wanted to fund the Labour Party, you'd go, oh, yeah, fine, they're going to have as many millions as they like. We have to play by the rules at hand and we have to win the next general election and we'll make no apologies for our
wanting to win the next general election and playing by the rules. So if you take that view, and again, I have some sympathy for it, I understand where that view comes from, then let's make sure the rules are fair for everybody. Reform should not be held to a different standard to the other. Are you Nigel Farage's Elon Musk? I certainly know Elon Musk. I think Elon Musk is singular. I've tried to learn as much as I can about him. One of the things about Elon is that he takes on unbelievably...
difficult challenges. As an entrepreneur, he has a deep understanding of the ground truths of what's going on, and that's why he's actually the ideal person to do the whole Doge, you know, the Department of Governmental Efficiency. Trump has a mandate to do that. You have given 400,000 pounds.
to Nigel Farage's party. It makes you the biggest donor, I think. No, so I've given 200,000. I thought you'd done that twice. No, no, no. I've given 200,000. And by the way, that's in the context of... the party having raised millions in the grand scheme of things I'm a pretty small donor in terms of percentage terms money is a big part
of Reform UK though, isn't it? You're an incredibly wealthy man. Nigel Farage is the richest or the best paid Member of Parliament at the moment, he promotes the sale of gold. in online advertisement. Richard Tice, who was the leader, now the deputy leader, spends his time between Skegness and Dubai. You don't live like ordinary people at all, do you? Okay, first of all, don't read everything you read in the newspapers. Richard's not spending his time between the UK and Dubai.
The reality is... He's talked on the record about the fact that he often visits Dubai where his partner lives. I speak to Richard almost every single day. Richard spends the vast majority of his working day in Parliament. He regularly goes to Dubai where his partner lives. Richard spends the vast majority of his time in the UK That's not contradicting what I've just asked you Well, I think his partner lives in Dubai. Listen, here's a fundamental point, Nick.
This country would be much better off if it had political leaders and members of parliament who understood how the world works, understand how systems work, how incentives work. I'm self-made. Nigel is self-made. Actually, Nigel's an unbelievably productive member of society. Just to correct you, he's certainly by no means the wealthiest member of parliament. Fair enough. There are members of parliament famously worth hundreds of millions of pounds and not necessarily self-made.
But here's the fundamental point, Nick. Being successful is a good thing. I'm really clear about this and I think this is important culturally for the UK when you talk about incentives and and how people grow up in this country. Success should be celebrated. Success should be rewarded.
Nigel, I will tell you, makes huge financial sacrifices in order to do the job that he does. He could earn much, much more money if he wanted to. He earns money promoting gold sales to very rich people like you earn your money selling trips.
with Orcas. What Nigel does is give all of his working hours and his incredible energy to helping reform win the next general election he has made enormous sacrifices over the decades he has to have a significant security detail because he also has to make sacrifices in terms of security as well i will tell you
The energy he has, the love he has for this country is something to behold. And as I said, success should be celebrated and this country would do well and I think would be better off if it had people making important decisions who had had some success before coming into politics. How do you stay in touch with what people who don't go to Dubai promote gold or earn their money by selling very expensive holidays to people? How do you stay in touch with those people?
Well, first of all, your characterization of me there, I mean, look, my first job, Nick, was working at a Moss pharmacy in Hampton. and I still remember it on minimum wage which from memory was somewhere in the region of £3.15 an hour and I worked on Saturdays and I still remember seeing that first
payslip come through. It was hard work because it was right on it. It was in an area where you would have some very interesting people come in and try to buy pharmaceuticals over the counter, some of which you could sell them, some of which you couldn't. But I really enjoyed it. And I think that... I'll do it now. You see, when we spoke to people who worked with you at Merrill Lynch, one of the biggest investment banks, was at least before the crash, and Goldman Sachs. They said,
He really liked money, isn't he? You know, the guy with the company credit card taking the clients out for very, very expensive dinners. And we're not talking, you know, a £30 bottle of wine, are we? We're talking of dinners in their thousands for merchant bankers. They said, that was your life, that's what you loved. uh well no i actually disagree with that um the vast majority of my time was spent in the office on the trading floor. I mean my work was basically helping research companies
advising clients on those companies. I actually did very little entertaining, actually, compared to most people on the desk. I hear you because you came, to be fair, you came from... you're a pretty poor part of Scotland originally before your parents moved to Surrey they've done a bit better and you've made clear that you did a job that wasn't well paid now though How do you stay in touch? Now it's by talking to people across the country. We've done events.
I don't believe any political party is doing the number and the size of the events that we're doing at the moment. So we do a lot of that and we talk to our members and our supporters. I still see... all of the inbound emails that come through on our website. And you see some really moving stuff. Obviously, we get incredible amounts of mail as well. But the most important thing is actually talking to people, understanding what their concerns are.
You hear across the board that obviously everyone has their own journey and their individual stories.
But the things that I hear a lot, and maybe it's because of my background perhaps I hear it more than others but the first thing I hear is from people saying thank you for saying so I hear a lot from people who are you know let's say number one white people in this country who's obviously families go back in generations who say thank you for saying things that we believe that we feel like we cannot say because if we do
We're going to get labeled as we're going to be called names and there's going to be social consequences for us. I also hear from legal migrants. people like my parents who say thank you for what you're saying and what you're doing because It is as abominable to them as it is for everybody else. They are as affronted as anybody by the people coming here illegally and going to the front of the queue for hotel accommodation. There's another second generation migrant who...
Sounds like she is extremely upset by a lot of what's been happening in this country. Would Suella Brafman make a good member of Reform UK? I have a huge amount of respect for Suella because she says things that she believes. She's been incredibly consistent. She hasn't flip-flopped or sailed with the wind like, frankly, many people, prominent figures in the Conservative Party. Have you spoken to her?
I've bumped into Suella at various events, yeah, absolutely, and she's a lovely and charming person. Would she be a good member of Reform UK? If Suella wanted to join Reform UK, yeah, absolutely. I mean, I remember when she... She asked the question the other day... She said it's legitimate to ask whether Britain will be the first Islamist state like Iran with a nuclear weapon. She was giving a speech in the United States.
Would that make her too extreme to be a member of Reform UK, or would she fit in nicely? I think I can go on my interactions with her and actually having followed her positions over a number of years as opposed to one specific speech. I remember she wrote an op-ed
in the Telegraph. And this was an important moment for me if somebody wasn't in politics at the time where she talked about, and I still remember that she's talked about the perception of two-tiered policing. She used the word perception. She prefaced it with that. She attenuated the language. And despite that, Number one, it was obvious at the time. Now it's incredibly obvious to a lot of people in this country. And what happened?
fired from the cabinet excommunicated and has basically remained a pariah and persona non grata in the Conservative Party ever since and I think she was early on this and she And I think she stood up for what she believes in, which I respect. Sounds like you'll be colleagues pretty soon. What about Boris Johnson? I heard that he had lunch with your main fundraiser, Nick Candy. Just the other day, the two of them.
Would Boris Johnson be welcome in Reform UK? No. No? No. I think Boris Johnson will end up... I think history will judge Boris Johnson as one of the most damaging prime ministers in this country's history. You. It's evident from things you've said in the past. You really, really politically dislike Boris Johnson. Why? I've never met Boris Johnson, so I can't comment on him personally or anything like that. I'm a big believer you've got to judge executives on outcomes, right? And that's why...
You know, if you'll talk about a Tory reform merger, now that's not uniting the right. The Tories are an extremely left-wing party. If you actually look at how they govern, if you look at Boris Johnson... Number one, the catastrophe of the COVID response in every possible way. Has he got Brexit done? I think is what he'd say, which is something you're in favour of. Technically, he got it done. That's true. And it was because of the magnanimous move by Nigel to stand down our candidates that...
That happened. But having did that... Just to be clear, in the 2019 election. Yes, in the 2019 election. But the main reason... You remember, take back control, right? And some people wanted secure borders. And what did Boris Johnson do?
threw open our borders and we had enormous numbers of people coming here from non-EU countries and it wasn't to come here and work and contribute in the main and the data point on this that is so so damaging to Boris's record is that over that six-year period, you had 3.1 million people arrive in net migration from non-EU countries, of which just 16%, 1-6% arrived on work visas.
So it was a total betrayal of everybody who actually voted for Brexit. He took public spending up towards close to Soviet Union levels. So there was nothing conservative about him. Slightly overdoing it, isn't it? It doesn't even reach the French or the German levels. It was quite away from the Soviet Union levels.
close to Soviet Union levels at one point during his leadership. I think what this conversation has illustrated, and it's been fascinating, you like to win. You like to fight hard. Now, when you relax, cricket's your game, isn't it? Yeah, I love cricket. When Keir Starmer...
was on this podcast. He talked about how much he liked to win and indeed the leader of the Scottish Labour Party said they even nobbled the ref in order to get more time, in order to make sure that his team got the chance to score extra goals. What sort of cricketer are you? So I bow leg spin and I bat sort of middle order. I'm not that great, but I love it.
And it allows me to decompress a little bit because when you're facing a bowler with that hard ball and anyone who plays cricket knows what that's like.
particularly against a fast bowler you're in that moment and that there's so much tradition and history obviously around cricket which I absolutely love there's also this sense of fair play you know one of the interesting things about it's also anyone who's played tennis is actually why i think children it's really important that they do play these sorts of sports because in tennis if you're playing against a friend
You have to cooperate and your friend is actually relying on you to tell them whether the ball is out or in, for example. So I absolutely love cricket. Obviously Sri Lanka has this incredible pedigree, has produced incredible players. Do you go when Sri Lanka tour? Yeah, well, I go to quite a lot of England games. But when Sri Lanka come here, I go. I support England in terms of the Tebbit test. I support England. My father supports Sri Lanka.
yeah and nothing wrong with that i don't think there's anything wrong with that at all no and maybe that is in a way a symbol of what you want britain to be like perhaps Perhaps. Zia Youssef, Chairman of Reform UK, thank you very much indeed for joining me. Thank you. The Daily Telegraph a few weeks back wrote an article about Mr Youssef. They said he was a living counter to the view that reforms membership tends to be middle-aged white men who look like they've just left the pub.
possibly not of their own volition. He could be very useful to Nigel Farage and I suspect you'll be seeing and hearing a whole lot more from him. Thank you for listening. The producer is Dan Kramer. The editor is Giles Edwards. And the studio manager this week, Annie Gardner. I'm Alex Kortosky.
And I'm Kevin Fong. How do you feel about AI? Does it scare you? Very quickly, that question comes up. You know, is it going to think for us? Does it excite you? I say, how is the AI going to help us to think better? Do you worry about how it'll change your life? your job,
AI is built into many of the software applications that we now use in the schools every day. In every episode of The Artificial Human from BBC Radio 4, Kevin and I are here to help. We will chart a course through the world of AI and we will answer your questions.
It doesn't just lie, but it lies in an incredibly enthusiastic, convincing way. That ability to be able to kind of think critically is just going to be so important as we move forward. The Artificial Human with me, Alex Grotowski. And me. Kevin Fall. Listen on BBC.