Good Morning Britain Cuts Zia Yusuf Over Racist Tweet

Zia Yusuf was cut off by ITV’s Good Morning Britain after dodging question about a tweet of his that sparked a racism row.

Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman was criticised after pointing out on X that a Labour by-election candidate was born in Somalia and adding: “Do you understand what’s happening?”

Sagal Abdi-Wali, who came to the UK as a child refugee more than 30 years ago and is leader of Camden Council, is standing for the party in Keir Starmer’s old seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

Commenting on Yusuf’s post, Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “This is racism, straight out of the Trump playbook.”

Labour business secretary Jonathan Reynolds called it “pretty straightforward racism”.

On Good Morning Britain on Friday, presenters Ranvir Singh and Kate Garraway both tried to get Yusuf to explain what he meant by his tweet.

The Reform bigwig said the racism allegation against him was “absurd on its face”.

He said: “Shutting down legitimate concerns from British people by calling them names is not going to work any more.”

Singh told him: “The woman concerned was born in Somalia. Your colleague [former Tory cabinet minister] Nadhim Zahawi was born in Iraq. Are you saying that he doesn’t have a right to run in politics, because he has?”

Avoiding the question, Yusuf – whose parents moved to the UK in the 1960s – said: “Are you aware that we have more foreign nationals living in Britain than at any point in our history?

“Are you aware that we have more people born abroad than ever before, and are you aware that we have more members of parliament from abroad than at any point in modern British history?”

He added: “This is not to say that you can’t be a patriotic British person if you were born abroad, it is not to say that you can’t serve our country if you were born abroad.

“But there are a lot of people deeply concerned when they see a group of Pakistani heritage MPs getting together and writing a letter to lobby the Pakistani government about an airport in Mirpur.”

But Singh said: “That isn’t responding to the tweet that you put out … that’s a deflection.”

Garraway then said: “If you don’t explain what you meant by it, then it’s going to be open to all sorts of accusations. Do you think you could explain what you meant by it?”

When Yusuf tried to repeat the point he had just made, Singh said: “We don’t want a repeat of the same answer, but thank you so much.

“Zia Yusuf, you had your chance to respond to the tweet, but you chose to deflect by talking about another issue.”

As Yusuf tried to respond again, his microphone was cut off as he was still speaking.

Watch the full exchange below.

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