The so-called ‘fastest growing political party’ is losing members
Reform UK has lost over 3,400 members in the past week as chaos looms large for the right-wing party.
According to figures obtained by LBC, Reform had 237,099 members on 2 June. Now, they have 233,675. The sharpest drop in members occurred between 5 and 9 June, when nearly 1,000 members quit.
This decline in membership coincided with Reform’s newest MP, Sarah Pochin, using her first-ever Prime Minister’s Question (PMQ) on 4 June to ask Keir Starmer whether he would ban the burqa “in the interests of public safety”.
Pochin’s shocking question triggered an internal row, as a burqa ban isn’t party policy. The controversy ultimately led to Reform’s chair, Zia Yusuf, who is a practising Muslim, resigning.
In a further show of how chaotic the party is, just 48 hours later, Yusuf rejoined Reform as head of the party’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
He has now also stated he would “probably” support a burqa ban if he were an MP.
A Reform UK spokesperson told LBC: “This is normal membership churn. This time last year our membership increased drastically.”
They added: “What we are seeing now is the result of year-long memberships that did not originally sign up for auto-renewals. This number will increase once renewals are processed.”
Only time will tell. If Reform continues with this chaos, it might no longer be the self-described ‘fastest growing political party’.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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