“So were you lying or was Nigel Farage lying?”
Reform’s Zia Yusuf was grilled on Question Time last night over an ex-Reform politician charged with accepting bribes from pro-Russian interests.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski challenged Yusuf over the party’s claims that Nigel Farage and Reform “didn’t know” who ex-Brexit Party MEP Nathan Gill was.
Gill was leader of Reform UK Wales from March to May 2021 and has been pictured with Farage and Reform deputy leader Richard Tice several times.
He was also leader of UKIP Wales between 2014 and 2016, when Farage was leader.
On 26 September, Gill pleaded guilty to accepting bribes to make pro-Russia statements in the European Parliament.
In an interview on BBC Breakfast on 29 September, Yusuf said of Gill: “I’ve never spoken to him, the first time I ever heard his name was in some news reports.”
Polanski quizzed Yusuf: “Now, Zia said that Nigel Farage and Reform did not know who this man was. But Nigel Farage, including the day after Brexit happened, was pictured with four men behind him, one of them being former MEP for Reform Nathan Gill, the man that Zia says no one knows who he was.
“So were you lying or was Nigel Farage lying?”
Yusuf claimed that Polanski was lying.
He said: “I’m afraid if you want to use the word lie, let’s be clear about something. You are lying. What I said is I have never met Nathan Gill.
“I took over as chairman in the summer of last year. I will tell you, I have never met Nathan Gill in my life.”
Even after the Reform head of policy was shown photos of Farage with Gill on BBC Breakfast, he denied that Farage knew him.
Yusuf said: “Nigel meets tens of thousands of people on an annual basis ultimately – and he can’t be held accountable for the actions of every single person whom he comes into contact with.”
On Question Time, Yusuf again stressed that Farage meets tens of thousands of people a year. Polanski challenged this defence, asking: “Including his own MP? Is that believable?”.
Yusuf continued to try and distance Farage and Reform from Gill. He claimed that Reform in Wales was polling on “like 1%” at the time Gill was leader.
Polanski then said: “Was he stood behind Nigel Farage in the picture or was he not?”
Yusuf dodged the question, saying: “The number of people standing in a photo with Nigel Farage, there would be hundreds of them.”
Question Time presenter Fiona Bruce then shut down the discussion, saying “I think there are other things the audience wants to talk about.”
Polanski countered this, saying: “Bribery from Russia is pretty serious for our national security”.
After the show, the Green Party leader reshared an old photo of Gill with Farage. In the post from 2017, Gill wrote: “Happy birthday to my friend and colleague @Nigel_Farage, aka Mr Brexit.”
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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