Might this Scottish Sri Lankan Muslim be Britain’s mini Trump?

Canada…Australia…England. Three elections where the Trump effect was discernible in some way.

In Canada and Australia, it was about rejecting politicians who parroted Donald Trump’s rhetoric and policy prescriptions.

But in England, people voting for their local authorities (and a few mayors) appear to have embraced a discernibly Trumpian party.

The Reform UK party, led by Trump ally Nigel Farage, won big in the May 1 local elections. Reform gained 677 councillors, won the most votes and two mayoralties. And it also managed a new MP in a parliamentary byelection.

Mr Farage is being hailed as the face of a new British politics.

But might that actually be a man of a rather different complexion?

I mean the Reform party’s chairman, Zia Yusuf?

A Scottish-born Muslim of Sri Lankan heritage, Mr Yusuf is in his late 30s. A graduate of the London School of Economics, he worked at Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs soon after university. An entrepreneurial businessman and self-made millionaire, he is rather new to politics. Having punted in the first instance with the Conservatives, he donated sizeable amounts to Reform and eventually wound up as chairman of Mr Farage’s party.

After Reform’s recent election triumph, Mr Yusuf has taken to the airwaves to champion Trumpy views that actively disdain diversity initiatives and seek a Trump 2.0-style moral re-education of young people to make sure they love their country.

Let’s be clear what he’s talking about.

Mr Yusuf is against any DEI initiatives in the areas newly to be governed by his party at the local level. That’s to say he is publicly against any way to level the playing field for people who look like him. DEI is short for diversity, equity and inclusion. It’s not about preferring unqualified people just because they’re not Anglo-Saxon but about ensuring that e v e r y candidate, irrespective of ethnicity, gets a fair shot.

Mr Yusuf’s anti-DEI interview on the BBC was punchy stuff. Except that in most of the local authorities Reform will now run, there is hardly any money spent on DEI!

As for the moral re-education of young people, which bit of history would Mr Yusuf want to excise from the curriculum (and/or public conversation) in order for young uns to stop interrogating the past?

Empire?

Racism?

The jury is out on this but Mr Yusuf seems the man to keep an eye on.

Why? Surely Mr Farage is the one who won it?

Yes, but the Reform leader is overly British in being a Marmite character — you either love the taste of the eponymous yeast extract spread particular to Britain or you don’t. Not so Mr Yusuf. He is more emollient. Buttery. Easier to stomach, in some ways.

Like Rishi Sunak, Suella Braverman and Vivek Ramaswamy in the US, Mr Yusuf is a brown-skinned child of immigrants. As I have previously written (Times of India paywall), all of these right-wing politicians might be seen as emblems of racial and cultural acceptance, aspiration and achievement under the chilly skies of the northern hemisphere countries in which their parents or grandparents made their home. And yet, all are the sort who seem to want, nay exult in the spectacle of “tofu-eating, wokerati” spluttering into their chickpea curry in the UK, US and further afield.