By pandering to racist representations of immigration and failing to explain it as the inevitable consequence of colonialism, empire and the neoliberal global order, Starmer now shares an ideological position with Nigel Farage.
The plan to end licensed immigration by people contracted to work in the care sector will intensify the crisis in the NHS and make life miserable for people in care.
Care sector employers are upset because it hits their supply of cheap labour and thus their profits.
This illustrates a feature of 21st century immigration into capitalist countries that disrupts both Farage’s narrative and Labour’s imitation of the same.
A migration-enlarged labour force increases precisely those profits — the unpaid wages that employers retain — that would be diminished if they were compelled to train locals and pay them enough to attract a sufficient supply of labour.
A sensible strategy would be to attack Farage for his support for privatisation, his opposition to employment rights, his fawning over Trump and his works, his willingness to flog off the NHS to US corporations.
The most productive approach would be to stand up for what most Reform UK voters want and which they share with most people in our country — public ownership, higher taxes on the rich and an end to the privileges of the plutocracy.
Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. DeSmog collage. Credit: Sky News / Real Time with Bill Maher / YouTube / Pexels / Graeme Maclean / Wikimedia Commons
Reform UK leader and figurehead Nigel Farage hasn’t been alone in basking in the media spotlight of late.
Farage has been accompanied by his party chair, Zia Yusuf, a multi-millionaire tech entrepreneur who has helped to orchestrate Reform’s explosive rise.
Yusuf has overseen the party’s growth to over 200,000 members and 400 regional branches since he took the role in July 2024 – helping to propel Reform to a swathe of victories at last week’s local elections.
The party is now being shaped in Yusuf’s image, who has “extraordinary” powers to kick out Reform members, and even its candidates. His position has no term limit, and there is no formal procedure to remove him – not even by Farage.
With these vast constitutional powers in place, Yusuf appears to be following the lead of his hero in business and politics: Elon Musk.
“The greatest entrepreneur of all time”
Press coverage of the Reform chair often describes him as having worked in “finance”, but Yusuf refers to himself as a “tech entrepreneur” and to Reform as a “start-up”.
While he did spend several years at the investment banks Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs in his early 20s, Yusuf left the world of finance for tech entrepreneurship in 2014, becoming the CEO of the luxury digital concierge company Velocity Black, which he co-founded.
Velocity Black is a mobile app for the super rich that allows them to have anything they want at the touch of a button, from exclusive restaurant reservations to private jet holidays. Yusuf founded the firm alongside Alex MacDonald, his old classmate at the private Hampton School in London.
They sold the company in 2023 to the U.S. bank Capitol One for £233 million, with Yusuf reportedly making £32 million on the sale.
Long before he turned to politics, Yusuf credited Musk – the CEO of the electric car company Tesla – as an inspiration for the founding of Velocity Black, telling The Independent in 2018 that “we agreed with Elon Musk – it [Velocity Black] can’t be slightly better; it’s got to be amazing”.
This fondness has continued following their mutual journeys into the political limelight. In the wake of Musk falling out with Farage over the latter’s refusal to embrace far-right organiser Tommy Robinson, Yusuf praised Musk for being, “by some distance, the greatest entrepreneur of all time”, saying that he “will be forever grateful for all [Musk] has done and will do for humanity”.
More recently, Yusuf has called Musk the “ideal person” to run Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which aims to radically reduce the size of the federal government. Musk’s department has made sweeping cuts to public services – including to climate agencies – sacked government staff en masse, and closed whole departments with no oversight or transparency.
And though Musk’s relationship with Farage has frayed in recent months, Yusuf hasn’t ruled out the possibility of receiving a major donation from Musk in the future – even despite his extreme unpopularity in the UK.
Reform UK chair Zia Yusuf and leader Nigel Farage. Credit: Imageplotter / Alamy Stock Photo
Yusuf’s admiration for Musk is clear, but to what extent will admiration lead to imitation?
There are clues in his recent speaking engagements. “Silicon Valley has a unique culture that’s impossible for anyone else to replicate, but look, we need to stop wasting taxpayer money,” Yusuf said in March, alluding to Musk’s attempts to eliminate “government waste”.
Yusuf has argued that a Reform government in Westminster should replicate the efforts of DOGE, saying that “we do need to massively cut the size of the bureaucratic state and probably cut the civil service by more than half”.
As he’s stated on X, the social media platform owned by Musk, “Reform is drafting detailed plans to identify, immobilise and remove all elements of the Blob [a derogatory reference to the civil service] hostile to the interests of the British people. This plan will be implemented on day one of Nigel Farage becoming prime minister”.
Reform has also vowed to set up “a British DOGE for every county and every local authority in this country” following its victories in last week’s local elections.
This potentially poses a threat to the UK’s climate ambitions. Farage and Yusuf have stated their intention to cut local climate schemes, advocating instead for more fossil fuel production.
Since becoming party chair, Yusuf has expressed a variety of anti-climate stances. He has claimed that North Sea oil reserves are a “gift from God”, and that the pursuit of net zero emissions by 2050 is “religious madness” and a “catastrophic act of self-harm” to the UK economy.
“President Trump’s victory represents the rejection of open borders, socialist economics, woke ideology, net zero fanaticism and [diversity, equity, and inclusion schemes] by right thinking people in America,” Yusuf posted in November. “The UK is next.”
A Power Grab?
Yusuf crashed onto the political scene in the summer of 2024, taking on the role of Reform chair shortly after donating £200,000 to the party. His contribution was the second-highest to the party of the general election campaign and almost a-third of the total funds raised by Reform in the final week before the election.
The 38-year-old has a close relationship with Farage, who he met at a cocktail party held by Stuart Wheeler, the former treasurer of UKIP, close to a decade ago. On the general election campaign trail, Farage said that Yusuf could one day lead Reform, commenting that “aside from his generosity, [Yusuf] will be a great asset and media performer during this campaign and beyond”.
When asked by The Guardian whether he would run for a seat in Parliament in 2029, Yusuf responded: “I’m absolutely open to it. This is a sincere comment. I will serve in whatever capacity Nigel asks of me”.
Recently, there has been talk of Yusuf gaining an unusual amount of power in the party. The Independent’s political editor David Maddox wrote in early March that “the only person to regularly get top billing on Reform events along with Mr Farage is Mr Yusuf. […] Press notices for their mini conferences state that people will hear from ‘Nigel Farage, Zia Yusuf and many more’. No mention of MPs.”
Maddox added that a “senior member” inside Reform had claimed that Yusuf was plotting a leadership coup “in plain sight”.
This bears some resemblance to Musk and his role in the Trump administration. Though he is less actively involved in DOGE following plunging Tesla sales across the globe, Musk has been accused of setting the new government’s agenda from the shadows, after donating more than $290 million to Trump’s campaign.
And there are other ways in which Yusuf is mirroring Musk.
Reform has stated its intention to profile every UK voter, and is already facing allegations of breaching private data.
Though the Reform privacy policy says that it aims to comply with UK data protection laws, the party is being sued by a group of 50 claimants for failing to respond to Data Subject Access Requests, through which voters can ask political parties to disclose the information they hold on them. Following the initiation of legal proceedings, Reform told the claimants that it did not hold any of their data.
DOGE has been accused of being slapdash with data, having accessed vast amounts of highly-sensitive personal information held by the U.S. government, despite rulings from several judges that Musk’s department is violating privacy law.
Given his constitutional powers, his party’s hunger for personal data, his anti-government ideology, and his tech background, Zia Yusuf seems to have many close parallels with Elon Musk.
On the BBC’s Political Thinking with Nick Robinson in February, he was asked the question directly: “Are you Nigel Farage’s Elon Musk?”
Yusuf demurred. “I am certainly no Elon Musk. I think Elon Musk is singular,” he said.
However, he hastened to add: “I’ve tried to learn as much as I can about him”.
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Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
Reform Party leader Nigel Farage celebrates his party candidate Sarah Pochin winning the Runcorn and Helsby byelection by six votes Photograph: Anthony Devlin/Getty Images
The head of the UK’s biggest union has urged staff at Reform UK-controlled councils to sign up after Nigel Farage warned workers to seek “alternative careers”.
Farage said during a speech on Friday that he would advise council staff working on diversity or climate change initiatives to seek “alternative careers very, very quickly” after Reform UK took control of Durham county council.
The Clacton MP’s party made major gains in Thursday’s local elections, picking up 10 councils and more than 600 seats. The party also won two mayoral races and secured a fifth MP in Runcorn and Helsby with Sarah Pochin.
Responding to Farage’s comments, Unison general secretary Christina McAnea said: “Unions are there to ensure no one can play fast and loose with the law.
“Any staff working for councils now controlled by Reform, and who aren’t yet members, should sign up so they can be protected too.”
Farage has said he wants a British equivalent of Doge – referring to the Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency”, which is slashing government spending in the US, in every council.
Climate science denier Nigel Farage explains that it’s simple to blame asylum-seekers or Muslims for everything.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Keir Starmer visiting the defence contractor Leonardo in Luton, 2 May 2025. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/PA
The local elections showed that voters feel betrayed. But in a party that brooks no dissent, that message isn’t getting through
The response from Labour spokespeople so far to the loss of Runcorn and Helsby – and to the election results as a whole – has been especially tin-eared. There doesn’t seem to be any understanding of the deep-seated emotion in the reaction of Labour supporters to the party’s behaviour in government over the past 10 months. There used to be talk of the need for emotional literacy in politics. What we are witnessing is a staggering level of emotional illiteracy.
Labour supporters feel deeply that their party has turned its back on them. It’s not just that they feel they are not being listened to. It’s that the Starmer and Reeves government is doing things that they believe no Labour government should ever do.
After 14 years of enduring year after year of austerity under the Conservatives, there was such a collective sigh of relief in getting rid of the incompetent, corrupt and brutal Tories. There might not have been much in the way of inspiring politics from Keir Starmer in the run-up to the election last July, but at least we had a Labour government.
The problem now is that, at times, the government is unrecognisable as a Labour government. This isn’t the traditional argument about whether the Starmer administration is behaving like old Labour or New Labour. It’s whether it’s Labour at all in the eyes of people who have supported us or would want to support us.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
Green Party Co-leader Adrian Ramsay. Wikipedia CC.
Responding to Nigel Farage’s comments on Radio 4’s Today Programme where he refused to accept that carbon emissions are leading to climate change, Green Party Co-Leader Adrian Ramsey, MP, hit back saying:
This morning’s performance suggested he hasn’t got the slightest grasp of even the most basic climate science. But I think it’s worse than that. He understands all too well human-made climate change, but he is willing to pretend he doesn’t and stand in the way of climate action for his party’s populist agenda.
If he really does believe what he says, let’s see if his ridiculous rhetoric stands up to actual scrutiny – let’s see if he is prepared to take part in an hour-long TV debate about climate change and the challenge of reaching net zero?”
Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an insane, xenophobic Fascist.
