Nigel Farage has hit out at his Reform colleague Zia Yusuf for calling former Tory minister Ben Wallace a “traitor.”
On Monday, Yusuf and Wallace were involved in a ill-tempered spat on social media after the ex-defence secretary asked questions of Reform’s prisons policy announcement.
After Wallace accused Yusuf of “making policy and facts up,” the Reform home affairs spokesperson labelled him a “moron” and a “traitor” in a post on X.
His comments were widely condemned by voices both in and outside of Reform, and now his leader Farage has given him a slap on the wrist over the post.
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Speaking to the Sun on Tuesday, Farage was asked if he agreed with Yusuf and thought Wallace was a traitor.
In response, Farage said Yusuf’s comments were “too far” and that traitor was “too strong a word.”
Farage went on to say that he “shall give him a ticking off.”
When he was then asked if he would be encouraging Yusuf to delete the tweet, Farage said: “I’ll speak to him today, but it’s over the top.”
At the time of writing there has been no apology from Yusuf for the comments, and he has even posted a poll on his X account asking whether Wallace should be “prosecuted for treason.”
Speaking to Times Radio on Tuesday morning, Wallace said he wanted an apology from Yusuf for his comments.
He said it was a “sad” and “desperate” attack against him, and that traitor is a “very loaded word.”
Senior Reform supporter Tim Montgomerie has also hit out at Yusuf for the comments, labelling his words ‘unacceptable.’
He had called on Farage to “bring him under control” and said Yusuf’s “language and attitude towards any opponent is inappropriate and counter-productive.”