Farage has publicly rebuked Zia Yusuf after the Reform spokesman called former defence secretary Ben Wallace a “traitor to Britain” and asked whether he should be prosecuted for treason.
“That is too strong a language,” Farage told The Sun. “I shall give him a ticking off, don’t worry. I’ll speak to him today, but it’s over the top.” At time of writing, Yusuf’s original post is still up. So is the poll asking followers if Wallace should face treason charges.
How it started
The row began over Reform’s overseas prison plan, after Wallace questioned it publicly. Reform’s promised 22,000 additional prison places by 2031, roughly 12,000 from modular “Nightingale prisons” on MoD land, the rest supposedly from transferring foreign prisoners overseas, to their home countries or rented cells in countries like El Salvador and Kosovo, with Estonia and Lithuania also floated as options. Estonia ruled itself out within hours.
Reform says the policy would create enough capacity to end early release for serious offenders. No transfer agreement’s been published with any named country, and real questions remain on cost, jurisdiction, and the legal status of prisoners sent somewhere they have no connection to. The numbers don’t quite add up either: of 10,134 foreign nationals in custody on 30 June, 3,283 were on remand, unconvicted, and 420 were classed as non-criminal prisoners. Only 6,431 were actually serving sentences.
Wallace challenged Reform on the practicalities: how it would get other governments to accept prisoners, and who’d pay. “No one is saying don’t send prisoners back when you can, but don’t lie to the public you can do it with a magic wand,” he wrote.
Yusuf called him a ‘moron’ and a ‘traitor’
Yusuf’s response opened with “Incredible that this moron was defence secretary,” blaming the previous Conservative government for the prison crisis. “Our policy today is in direct response to your government’s failures. If their home countries won’t take back their citizens that are languishing in our jails, we are renting spaces in countries like El Salvador to put them. They will serve their full jail terms there, and will be banned from ever coming back to Britain.”
Then he moved from criticising Wallace’s record to accusing him personally. He referenced the secret Afghan resettlement programme set up after an MoD data breach exposed thousands of applicants’ personal details, claiming some of those brought to the UK hadn’t been properly vetted and alleging some were Taliban fighters. “You know, the ones you took a superinjunction out to keep secret from the British people? That’s why I call you a traitor to Britain. You fit the dictionary definition.”
The superinjunction was imposed by the courts after ministers argued publication could endanger Afghans whose details had leaked. Yusuf’s claims about unvetted arrivals and Taliban fighters remain allegations, made as part of his attack, not established fact.
Wallace wants an apology
Wallace said he was “saddened” by the remarks and called for one. “Traitor is a very loaded word. Traditionally, treason and traitor comes with a death sentence, historically.”
The word landed particularly badly given Wallace’s own service record: British Army from 1991 to 1998, commissioned into the Scots Guards after Sandhurst, serving in Northern Ireland, Germany, Cyprus and Central America, mentioned in dispatches according to his official government biography. He was defence secretary from 2019 to 2023, including through the Afghanistan withdrawal and the Kabul airport evacuation. His record in that role is fair game for criticism, including how the withdrawal was handled. None of that establishes Yusuf’s specific accusation that he betrayed the country.
Even Reform’s own people are uncomfortable
Tim Montgomerie, the commentator who left the Conservatives for Reform, called it unacceptable: “This isn’t acceptable from Zia. I don’t agree with @BenWallace70 on this issue but Zia’s language and attitude towards any opponent is inappropriate and counter-productive. Opponents are opponents. They aren’t enemies or ‘morons’.” He called Yusuf talented but said his social media posts are becoming a genuine problem for a party trying to win support beyond its existing base.
This follows earlier reports that some Reform insiders have already urged Farage to remove Yusuf from his home affairs role, with one source describing him as “trigger happy” and another warning internal divisions could go public. Yusuf’s been in this position before, dismissing questions about Farage’s own political comeback timeline as already “litigated” during a recent BBC Breakfast interview.
Farage has now said Yusuf crossed a line. He hasn’t announced any actual disciplinary action. That distinction matters: a private “ticking off” lets Farage distance himself from the word “traitor” without making Yusuf retract anything. With the post and the treason poll both still online, that distance looks pretty thin. Absent an apology or deletion, Reform’s actual position seems to be that the remarks were unacceptable, just not unacceptable enough to do anything about.
2 responses to “Farage promises Zia Yusuf a ‘ticking off’ after Ben Wallace ‘traitor’ attack”
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Zia is absolutely correct in his language and it’s use. The vast majority of the establishment politicians ARE TRAITOR’S.
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