Reform at war as the Jenrick-Yusuf 'bromance' finally comes to an end

Has the unlikely bromance which Zia Yusuf and Robert Jenrick have sought to project since the latter defected from the Tories to become Reform’s ‘shadow chancellor’ earlier this year finally come to an end?

Despite the pair’s evident animosity towards one another in the days when Bobby J was a Tory, they spent Jenrick’s initial period in the party posting admiring messages about each other on X and posing for rictus-grinned photo ops in a bid to show bygones were bygones.

But a simmering rivalry always remained. Yusuf is said to have been the most lukewarm of Nigel Farage’s inner circle about allowing Jenrick in, and things hardly improved when, in February, it was revealed that while only six months before he quit the Conservatives, the former shadow justice secretary attempted to obtain confidential application information from Yusuf’s bid to become a Tory candidate, writing to a colleague “we should destroy him.”

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Now the worst-kept secret in Westminster has burst into the open after Jenrick used a Sky News interview at the weekend to suggest Reform would not deport foreign nationals living in social housing – only to be publicly rebuked by Yusuf for contradicting party policy.

Asked by Trevor Phillips if a foreign resident who is legally resident in the UK but lives in social housing would be deported under a Reform government, Jenrick replied: “Well, not exclusively because of that.

“If they fail to meet our criteria because they’re not in work, or they’re not working in as many hours, not earning enough money, then they won’t be able to renew their work visa because ILR [Indefinite Leave to Remain] won’t exist and they’ll be asked to leave.”

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The next day Yusuf reposted a short clip of the interview on, inevitably, X, writing: “Robert’s answer is not Reform policy. As the person responsible for our deportation plan I want ensure [sic] people know where we stand: if a foreign national lives in social housing at taxpayer expense, they automatically fail our economic test and will be deported.” Oof!

It’s the first creak in the facade of bonhomie which the party has tried to create since Jenrick defected from the Tories in January.

Jenrick had also previously accused Yusuf of “bullshit” after he said that a member of his team “accidentally pressed like” on an antisemitic X post attacking Jenrick’s wife, who is Jewish. Jenrick had also dubbed him “Zia Useless”. A Tory party source told the Times earlier this year that Jenrick and his team were “obsessed” with Yusuf, who himself had his eye on Reform’s Treasury brief before making do with home affairs, and said: “Zia should watch his back. He’ll be first out of the door when Rob takes over from Nigel.”