Sunday’s episode of Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg wasn’t short on drama, especially when Reform UK’s Chairman, Zia Yusuf, was put under the spotlight to explain some of his party’s more hardline promises. Fresh from their surprising local election success, Reform has found itself facing some tough questions, particularly about its bold claims on stopping migrants from being housed in hotels.
Laura Kuenssberg, not one to let things slide, cut straight to the point. She asked Zia how Reform planned to block migrants from staying in hotels, especially given the government’s existing contracts with providers that run until 2029. “So how were you going to do that?” she challenged, “because again, we’ve checked this, the break clauses for these contracts are not till 2029, so aren’t you promising something you can’t deliver?”, according to the Express.
Zia, clearly ready for the grilling, insisted Reform would throw everything they had at the issue, even hinting at legal warfare. “We’ll use every instrument of power available to us to stop it, and there are things you can do. There are judicial reviews, there are injunctions, there are a lot of different things that we can do,” he said. “There’s planning laws… when you suddenly turn [hotels] into something else, which is essentially a hostel, that falls foul of several regulations.”
He added that the party’s legal teams were already digging into the planning angles and examining budgets. It was the kind of defiant, take-no-prisoners rhetoric Reform voters are likely to applaud—but whether it’ll hold up under scrutiny is another matter entirely.
This all follows a huge shake-up in local politics. Nigel Farage’s party made serious gains in the recent elections, including their first mayoral victory in Greater Lincolnshire. They even snatched Runcorn and Helsby, a seat that had been seen as a safe Labour stronghold, by a whisker.
With a whopping 677 council seats now under Reform’s belt, both Labour and the Tories are feeling the pressure. Labour MPs are particularly rattled, warning Sir Keir Starmer that he needs to act fast if he wants to win back public trust and avoid what some are calling a potential “meltdown” at the next general election.
If this weekend’s TV sparring is anything to go by, Reform isn’t planning to go quietly—and neither are the questions about how they plan to turn slogans into actual solutions.
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