'Young people must be taught to love the UK', Reform claims, with children suffering 'industrial-scale demoralisation'
3 May 2025, 23:19
Reform UK will seek to revive a love of country among young people if it wins national power, the party's chairman has suggested.
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Zia Yusuf claimed that British people had undergone an "industrial scale demoralisation", with children "taught... that they should hate their country".
Speaking to the Times after his party's strong performance in local elections this week, Mr Yusuf also claimed that the UK "has one of the most profoundly impressive and decisively impactful histories of any country in the world".
Reform, led by Nigel Farage, made major gains in the local elections, picking up ten councils and more than 600 seats in Thursday's poll - leading to speculation that they could even emerge victorious from a future General Election.
Mr Farage has said he wants a British equivalent of Doge - referring to the Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency, which is slashing government spending in the US, in every council.
He said he would advise anyone working on climate change or diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives to be "seeking alternative careers very, very quickly", in a speech in Durham on Friday.
Agreeing, Mr Yusuf said: "There has been an industrial-scale demoralisation, particularly of young people in this country, who are basically being taught quite deliberately that they should hate their country; they should be deeply ashamed of their country’s history; that the United Kingdom had a brutal empire …
"Look, of course, you know, the British Empire was not perfect, but I actually think overall the British Empire did much more good for the world than it did bad.
“I think this country has one of the most profoundly impressive and decisively impactful histories of any country in the world. These things are not taught and embedded into British people in the way that they are in many other countries. Go to China, go to Russia, go to the United States of America …
"And so we’ve got to revive that … Ultimately what we’ve got to do is give young people a sense of belonging again.”
Mr Yusuf asked how often "a truly great Briton from the past" was given a new statue in Trafalgar Square, contrasting this with the "crazy modern art" of the fourth plint.
He added: "I mean if people want to go and enjoy modern art, cool, go enjoy that. Don’t put it in Trafalgar Square.”
Mr Yusuf, who was born in the UK, said that young people weren't being taught about their illustrious forebears such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer, and Winston Churchill.
Referring to his statue in Parliament Square, which was defaced in protests in 2020, he said: "The fact that they have to cover up his statue because they don’t want to provoke protesters.
"I mean that’s the sort of utterly indefensible so-called leadership that we’ve had and young people feel that in their bones.”
Mr Farage hailed his party's landmark results as “the end of two-party politics” and “the death of the Conservative Party”.
But, squeezed between Reform and the Liberal Democrats, the Tories lost more than 600 councillors and all 15 of the councils it controlled going into the election, among the worst results in the party’s history.
Mrs Badenoch herself apologised to the defeated Conservative councillors, adding: “I am going to make sure that we get ourselves back to the place where we are seen as the credible alternative to Labour.”
