Ben Habib ridiculed as he is dropped as Reform UK co-deputy leader

Ben Habib

Ben Habib ridiculed as he is dropped as Reform UK co-deputy leader

Despite having just five MPs, Reform UK has been acting as though it secured far more by announcing Lee Anderson as the party’s chief whip and reshuffling its chairman and deputy leader positions.

After making a dig at former Commons speaker John Bercow in his first contribution in the chamber on Tuesday, two days later Nigel Farage shared that chairman Richard Tice – who he replaced as leader during the general election campaign – would be the party’s new deputy leader, while party donor and former Goldman Sachs executive director Zia Yusuf will become the new chairman.

All of this shuffling has also meant some departures, too, as TalkTV presenter David Bull and former MEP Ben Habib are no longer co-deputy leaders.

And while Bull was delighted to hand over deputy leadership duties to Tice and “concentrate on [his] media career”, Habib took to Twitter/X to be a bit more critical about the party.

He wrote: “I am considering my position more generally in light of this change. I have long held concerns about the control of the party and the decision making processes.