The 'traitor' row tearing Reform apart

**Jon Sopel** (0:02)
This is a Global Production. Zia Yusuf, calling a former conservative defence secretary, Ben Wallace, who has served his country, who has been honoured for the military service that he gave, to call him a traitor?

**SPEAKER_2** (0:20)
No.

**Lewis Goodall** (0:21)
But then what happens when you're on the down and you're trying to lift yourself again? You try and get attention.
But the way that you get attention, as we know, in the content era and the attention economy that we live in, is by being more extreme, by leaning into your worst excesses.

**Jon Sopel** (0:35)
You are maybe appealing to the far right flank and to those people who are on X. But are you winning the country over?

**Lewis Goodall** (0:44)
The thing about insurgent parties like Reform is in a way they're a conjuring trick. They're very good at casting a spell.

**Ben Wallace** (0:52)
I don't care about being called a moron. I do care about being called a traitor. Traitor is a very loaded charge. Traitor carries, by history, a death sentence. And this is a man who a few weeks ago was telling people to modify their language after the tragic murder of Anne Whitaker and spouts this stuff. I also think it's a bit cheeky. This is a guy who's an American banker, for God's sake. Never put a uniform on in his life.
I spent nine years of my life on operational tours and in uniform. From a party whose Welsh leader is currently languishing in jail for 10 years for basically being a traitor, taking money from the Russian state, Nathan Gill, I think I know a traitor better than he does.

**Lewis Goodall** (1:30)
That is the former Conservative Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, speaking on LBC. As a former serviceman, I think it's fair to say, taking no prisoners against the reform Home Affairs spokesperson, Zia Yusuf, after he called Wallace a traitor to Britain, after Wallace had criticised reforms policies on sending prisoners in the UK to foreign countries.

**Jon Sopel** (1:57)
The striking thing since the 2024 election is how much reform got right in the immediate aftermath of it. But is it now getting everything absolutely wrong?
Welcome to The News Agents.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:17)
The News Agents.

**Jon Sopel** (2:18)
It's Jon.

**Lewis Goodall** (2:19)
It's Lewis. And before we start, Jon, I don't know about you. I just really fancy for some reason, I don't know why, like a 99 ice cream, maybe with like a flake. And for some reason I've got green sleeves. I've just got green sleeves just going off in my head for some reason.

**Jon Sopel** (2:34)
You're trying to make a sartorial joke, are you?

**Lewis Goodall** (2:36)
Well, you've said enough of them in my way in the past. Just for people listening rather than watching, Jon is wearing today a very fetching cream suit. It would make Martin Bell blush, I think it's fair to say. That's how bright it is.

**Jon Sopel** (2:48)
It's very bright and it's very new.

**Lewis Goodall** (2:50)
It's very new, very lovely.

**Jon Sopel** (2:51)
From a holiday in Vietnam, made to measure, can't beat it, and it's a little lighter than I had anticipated.

**Lewis Goodall** (2:58)
It's lovely.

**Jon Sopel** (2:59)
It's summer, a little taste of summer, whereas you look rather gloomy in winter.

**Lewis Goodall** (3:01)
I know, I'm already preparing for the autumn. Calippos all around. Anyway, back to our proper story. So this is, well, as it often is with reform, it is a row which is engulfing the party which started on X, and which is, I think, in all sorts of ways, reminding us of the ways in which this feels like a party at the moment, which is spiralling out of control. So Zia Yusuf, who we've had on this show before, he's the party's former party chairman, home affairs spokesperson, he's often been heralded by Nigel Farage as the rising star of the party.
As you heard at the top there, he has been slammed by the former Defense Secretary Ben Wallace for saying online that he was a traitor to Britain. I have to say this is the sort of language which has become more common, certainly in parts of the Reform Party and from Yusuf himself. This comes after Yusuf hit out at the Defense Secretary. Ben Wallace had criticized Yusuf's plans to fix the shortage of prison places by sending foreign criminals abroad. He said that on X and in response, Yusuf said, incredible that this moron was Defense Secretary. 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're going to rent spaces in countries like El Salvador to put them.