Chairman of UK's right-wing Reform party quits abruptly

By Sachin Ravikumar

LONDON (Reuters) -Zia Yusuf, the chairman of Britain's right-wing Reform UK party, resigned abruptly on Thursday following a row with its newest lawmaker, becoming the latest senior figure to exit the populist party.

Reform, led by Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage, has overtaken Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour Party in opinion polls as Britain's most popular political party less than a year after it won five parliamentary seats at a national election.

Yusuf, a businessman who is not a lawmaker himself, was made Reform's chairman last year, as Farage went on a drive to professionalise the party.

"I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time, and hereby resign the office," Yusuf said, without giving further details of the reason for his exit.

Hours before announcing his resignation, Yusuf, a self-described "British Muslim patriot", criticised Reform lawmaker Sarah Pochin over her question to Starmer in parliament on Wednesday asking if he would ban the burqa garment worn by some Muslim women.

Starmer told Pochin in reply that he would "not follow her down that line", while Reform said shortly after that a burqa ban was not official party policy.

"I do think it's dumb for a party to ask the PM if they would do something the party itself wouldn't do," Yusuf wrote in a post on X.

His shock departure comes just days after he shared the stage with Farage and Pochin at a Reform press conference in London, and weeks after he helped the party to a strong performance in local elections and one parliamentary by-election in which Pochin was elected as a lawmaker.

The party has seen divisions in its upper ranks before.

In March Reform referred one of its lawmakers, Rupert Lowe, to police over allegations including threats of physical violence against Yusuf. Prosecutors later said they would not bring charges against Lowe, who was suspended by Reform.

And in November its deputy leader Ben Habib quit, citing "fundamental differences" with Farage.

Farage said he was "genuinely sorry" that Yusuf had decided to stand down.

"Politics can be a highly pressured and difficult game and Zia has clearly had enough. He is a loss to us and public life," Farage wrote on X.

(Reporting by Sachin Ravikumar; editing by William James and Alistair Bell)