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Reform membership drops by 3000 in past week amid 'burqa ban' row
10 June 2025, 06:14 | Updated: 10 June 2025, 16:56
LBC can reveal nearly 3,000 members have left Reform UK in the last seven days - coinciding with an internal row about the burqa and the exit of party chairman Zia Yusuf.
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New data seen exclusively by us shows Reform's membership dropped by 2,924 members between 2 and 9 June, falling from 237,099 to 234,175.
The sharpest decline occurred over four days - from the 5 June to the 9 June when nearly 1,000 members departed.
It follows the newly elected MP for Runcorn and Helsby Sarah Pochin using her Commons debut on 4 June to ask whether the UK should follow France, Denmark, and Belgium and ban the burqa in the name of public safety.
Just a day later, on 5 June, Mr Yusuf, a practising Muslim, resigned.
He described the Commons question as “dumb” and said he no longer believed the party had the right strategy to form a government.
But in a surprise move, Yusuf returned to Reform UK just 48 hours later, on 7 June, taking on a new senior role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Zia Yusuf has returned to Reform, 48 hours after quitting over the 'burqa ban' row
The new division will focus on policy development, media strategy, party fundraising and local government spending reviews.
Yusuf later said his resignation was a “miscalculation”, citing exhaustion and online racist abuse as factors in his decision to step down.
He also stated he would “probably” support a burqa ban if he were an MP, although this remains outside current party policy.
Despite the week’s turbulence, Reform UK’s membership remains higher than it was at the start of May - up 4,775 members over five weeks.
Read more: Nigel Farage says he has forgiven Zia Yusuf for resignation
The party is now preparing for a series of key electoral contests, including local council and Welsh Senedd elections.
Following our findings a Reform UK spokesperson said: “This is normal membership churn. This time last year our membership increased drastically.
"Over the past year, Reform UK’s membership has grown by more than 200,000.
“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.
“We are the only political party in the UK that publicly publishes and updates its membership figures live.”
Reform's new chairman Dr David Bull told LBC: "(These members) have fallen off. They probably don't know they need to renew and that's another thing we need to sort out.
"Many of them signed up for a one-off (membership) and we then didn't send out any reminders. Today I'm going to write a letter to all of the members to say please can you make sure your subscriptions are up to date."
