Former Reform UK Chairman Zia Yusuf has apologised to Sarah Pochin MP and his party colleagues after resigning from the party only to rejoin just days later in a different capacity.
In his first exclusive sit-down interview since his dramatic return, Yusuf admits he regrets sending the tweet, telling GB News he "made a mistake".
Discussing his fallout with the Reform Party, Yusuf explained: "I feel very good, it's great to be back. In those 48 hours or so that passed after I sent that tweet, which I now regret, I was inundated with messages, emails, DMs from people who told me how important Reform was to them.
"It's much more than a political party, it is a movement, which frankly, represents the last hope the country has to turn itself around."
Zia Yusuf has told GB News he 'apologised' to Reform UK colleagues after calling Sarah Pochin's question on the burka ban 'dumb'
GB News
Yusuf told Gloria De Piero that messages from supporters contributed to him 'reconsidering' his hasty decision and made him realise his 'importance' to the party.
Yusuf explained: "The messages also underscored how important they thought I was within the movement, and many of them were just very declaratively asking me to reconsider.
"And, as is often the case, sometimes it takes a little distance from someone or something for you to realise how important something is. And so those things coming together just made me realise, I'd made a mistake."
When pressed by Gloria about whether he apologised to his Reform colleagues, Yusuf revealed: "I did because my tweet was an intemperate tweet borne of exhaustion, which I regret."
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PARLIAMENTLIVE.TVExpanding on the reason for his regret, Yusuf said that he takes full responsibility for the decisions he made in the lead up to his resignation.
Yusuf told the People's Channel: "In terms of the tweet, it was the decision to to resign. I don't mind saying, I'm a workaholic. I've given my all. I give my all to everything that I do.
"We've had 11 months of building this party, and we've achieved, I think, something truly extraordinary. I think the May 1 elections will go down as probably the most historically important set of local elections in this country's history."
He added: "And I basically hadn't had a day off. Even after the election, I was at the Runcorn count, lots of adrenaline, and I barely got any rest then because then it was straight off to do media rounds, and then it was straight to the Kent celebration, and then straight off to go and launch ten councils."
Yusuf said he 'regrets' sending the tweet
GB News
Pressed by Gloria on whether he will "change his working pattern" now he has returned to Reform, Yusuf said he will make "one key change".
Yusuf said: "The one change I am going to make, because I think it was a confluence of multiple issues, was also my information diet, frankly, I was doing about eight to 10 jobs.
"When I arrived as Chairman, there was basically no infrastructure, virtually no team, there wasn't a political party, and so we've assembled this thing that has grown 400 odd branches, we've got well over a quarter of a million members now.
"So one thing I'm going to do is spend less time on on X, and I will take a holiday even or just even a few days off, I think that would be helpful."
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