Muslim millionaire of Sri Lankan decent gives major donation to Reform UK

A Muslim entrepreneur has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to Reform UK, claiming the UK has “lost control of our borders”.

The precise amount Zia Yusuf has given to the party has not been disclosed but Reform UK claims it is the biggest donation of their general election campaign so far.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has faced criticism from Muslim organisations after he said a growing number of Muslims do not share British values.

When asked by the BBC about critics labelling some in Reform UK racist, Mr Yusuf said the party leadership “feel very strongly that we should protect British values and put British people of all religions and creeds first.”

As well as being a donor, it is understood the 37-year-old will have a public role for Reform UK during the campaign.

In an interview with The Telegraph, which first reported the story of his donation, Mr Yusuf said: “I love Britain and I’m a patriot, a British Muslim patriot, which I believe the vast majority of Muslims in the UK are.”

Mr Yusuf, who earned an estimated £31m from selling his luxury concierge app Velocity Black last year, told the BBC he believed “unsustainable” net migration levels were making it harder for legal migrants to integrate and overwhelming the NHS.

“We have lost control of our borders. That’s my view. And I think it’s an objective statement,” he told the reporters.

The entrepreneur, whose parents came to Britain from Sri Lanka in the 1980s and worked in the NHS, told the BBC “we need a grown-up discussion about immigration without name-calling”.

He said it was his “patriotic duty” to fund Nigel Farage and Reform UK.

Last month, Mr Farage told Sky News: “We have a growing number of young people in this country who do not subscribe to British values, [who] in fact loathe much of what we stand for.” 

Asked if he was talking about Muslims, he said: “We are.”

Zara Mohammed, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, accused him of deploying “horribly Islamophobic, racist and hate-filled rhetoric of misinformation”.

Reform UK said Mr Yusuf’s donation was given “very recently” as a single lump sum so it has not yet shown up in Electoral Commission donation figures.

In the first week of the campaign, Reform UK raised £140,000, compared to Labour’s £927,000 the Conservatives £575,000 and the Lib Dems £455,000, the Electoral Commission reported.

Born in Scotland, Mr Yusuf moved with his parents to the south of England and won a partial scholarship to attend the private Hampton School in Middlesex.

After working at Goldman Sachs, he quit his high-paying job to start Velocity Black with an old school friend.

Until recently, he was a Conservative Party member but left due to Rishi Sunak’s government’s inability to “make difficult decisions.”

Despite parallels with Mr Sunak – both sons of migrants who entered finance after attending elite fee-paying schools – Mr Yusuf said the PM can no longer “credibly govern”.

“Whatever is in the hearts of Conservative leaders, the reality is they are so disunited, and when there is so much infighting in the party,” he said.

Reform controversy

Reform UK has been at the centre of a number of controversies since the election campaign began.

This week, parliamentary candidate Jack Aarondefended social media posts in which he had said Adolf Hitler was “brilliant” at inspiring people into action and that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is “gentle by nature”.

Last week, after it emerged that another candidate, Ian Gribbin, said Britain should have “taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality”, the party’s spokesperson defended the comments as “probably true” – although leader Farage calledGribbin “blooming stupid”.

Gribbin also said women should be denied healthcare. He has since apologised for the comments.

Meanwhile, Farage said he was unable to deselect candidate Steve Chilcott because his “name is on the ballot paper”, after it emerged that Chilcott said “Islam and Nazis are the same thing” in 2017.

Asked about the candidate on LBC, Farage replied: “Never heard of him.”