Who’s who in Reform UK’s top team

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Nigel Farage unveiled several members of his top team on Tuesday, as he seeks to shift the perception that Reform UK is a one-man band and show that the populist party is ready to govern.

While Reform is not the official opposition to the Labour government — it has just eight MPs versus the Conservatives with 116 and the Liberal Democrats with 72 — the party has commanding leads in opinion polls.

Farage now wants to convince voters — and potential donors — that his party is a credible vehicle for power.

Robert Jenrick

treasury

Jenrick, an ambitious former corporate lawyer, came within a whisker of becoming Conservative Party leader in late 2024 — but jumped ship to Reform a year later.

The 44-year-old MP for Newark was previously a moderate cabinet minister under various Conservative administrations. As housing secretary he was criticised for fast tracking Richard Desmond’s “Westferry Printworks” housing development, enabling the billionaire developer to avoid a £40mn-plus council levy.

In 2023 he resigned from the more junior position of immigration minister after becoming frustrated by his own government’s attempts to control migrant numbers. He has since become an adept user of social media to get across his increasingly strident anti-immigration rhetoric to the public.

In dramatic scenes on January 15 he was sacked by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch as shadow justice secretary for plotting to join Reform: he defected that afternoon, claiming Britain had been “broken” by his former colleagues.

Zia Yusuf

home office

Yusuf appeared out of nowhere a month before the 2024 general election, donating £200,000 to Reform UK. The donation sparked a meteoric rise for the former Goldman Sachs banker, who was quickly made chair of the party.

Yusuf ruffled many feathers during his time as chair, sacking dozens of party officials as part of a ruthless mission to professionalise the party. After 11 months, he dramatically quit following an internal spat concerning the party’s policy on the burka, the full-body covering worn by some Muslim women. The 39-year-old returned to the party within 48 hours, blaming exhaustion for his decision.

The son of Sri Lankan parents who came to the UK in the 1980s and found the country “incredibly welcoming”, Yusuf made his money first as an executive director at Goldman, and then with an old school friend, starting a concierge service and app called Velocity Black that arranged luxury experiences for the ultra-wealthy. They sold the company in 2023 for a reported £230mn.

Richard Tice

business, energy and industry

Tice was the co-leader of Reform for three years before he handed the reins back to Nigel Farage in 2024.

Now the deputy leader of the party, he has given Reform £1.3mn, bankrolling it through its shakiest periods.

As well as his current role as head of Reform’s Elon Musk-inspired local government efficiency initiative, Tice is one of the key figures leading the party’s charm offensive in the City of London.

The 61-year-old multimillionaire came from a wealthy family. His grandfather, Bernard Sunley, founded a successful property empire under the umbrella of the Sunley Group, which Tice joined in 1991 as its joint chief executive.

Tice was a significant proponent of Brexit and co-founded the Leave.EU campaign group with fellow Brexiter Arron Banks.

Suella Braverman

education

Securing Braverman’s defection from the Tories to Reform last month was a coup for the party — it was a decision that had been more than a year in the making and followed the defection of her husband Rael Braverman in 2024.

As home secretary between 2022 and 2023, she described the Conservative government’s ill-fated plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda as her “dream” and “obsession”, and coined the phrase “Guardian-reading, tofu-eating wokerati” to describe disruptive climate protesters.

The daughter of immigrants from Mauritius and Kenya, Braverman trained as a barrister and served as attorney-general between 2020 and 2021.