Politics Caroline lucas zia yusuf

Caroline Lucas’s forensic takedown of Nigel Farage’s wingman Zia Yusuf had everyone cheering

John Plunkett. Updated February 18th, 2026

To the studios of BBC2’s Newsnight, where guests included Zia Yusuf, Reform UK’s newly anointed (and entirely unelected) ‘shadow home secretary’.

And it’s fair to say Yusuf’s new brief got off to a bit of a rocky start, after he was pulled apart not just by presenter Victoria Derbyshire but former Green Party leader, Caroline Lucas.

The erstwhile MP for Brighton performed a forensic deconstruction of Yusuf and his party and it was one minute and a bit very well spent.

Here’s what she had to say.

“Your position is utterly incoherent”

“You have provided no evidence that it’s the Equalities Act that discriminates against white working class boys”

“And when it comes to the wider issue of taking your word on anything you’ve said, it seems to be a muddled message”

“When you said something about Robert Jenrick a few years ago, we are not to take it seriously, whereas now we are to take you seriously”

“We’ve got Reform UK’s Suella Braverman ripping up the Equalities Act”

“We’ve got Richard Tice suggesting people will end up with far more expensive energy bills because he wants to go drilling in the north sea rather than using renewable energy”

“Reform UK pretends to be an insurgent party, an anti establishment anti elite party, yet it’s stuffed full of old Tory retreads”

“It just doesn’t add up”

“People looking at this press conference this afternoon are going to feel that Reform UK doesn’t know what its doing”

“The interesting thing of course was Nigel Farage was trying to present the other spokespeople as a way of saying that it’s no longer just about me, its’ about all of us”

“All of you were asked by the press 25 questions, and Nigel Farage answered all of them”

The look on Yusuf’s face may very well have said it all. But if it didn’t, these people’s responses were also 10/10.

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Source @implausibleblog