Sky News anchor Ali Fortescue interrogated Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf on the programme.
Sky News was interrupted with a breaking alert (Image: Sky News)
Sky News was interrupted for a breaking alert as Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf demanded Keir Starmer resign. Anchor Ali Fortescue spoke to the home affairs spokesperson via video link on the show to glean his reaction as the first of the ‘Mandelson files’ were released by the government.
Yusuf said: “Imagine you’ve read that in a vetting report offered to you about a candidate for any job at all – would you give that person a job? And yet Keir Starmer did. That’s before we talk about any of the other scandals, obviously, that have littered Peter Mandelson’s past that Starmer would have been aware of. It’s a catastrophic error of judgement. One has to ask, is there something else going on?
“It’s brought disgrace to our country by appointing him as Britain’s ambassador to America. Look, I would say Keir Starmer should resign. He’s prime minister in name only.
“It’s clearly people like Ed Miliband actually now pulling the strings in the parliamentary party of Labour, and I think it’s just a matter of time now, probably after the May elections, when it looks like Labour will face a catastrophic drubbing, that Starmer will be put out of his misery and be replaced,” he fumed.
Fortescue then put to him: “I do need to put the government perspective to you, because they would say that there’s more information to come out, that they can’t release all of it because of the Met Police investigation.
Fortescue confronted Yusuf (Image: Sky News)
“Keir Starmer did ask questions to Peter Mandelson and that would help their case. So we don’t necessarily have a totally full picture right now, do we?”
Yusuf responded: “It’s correct, we don’t yet have a totally full picture, but I put it to you – what is already apparent is so catastrophic and damning that in any sort of normalcy in British politics or politics in any serious country, Keir Starmer would already have resigned.
“It’s only because Labour is such a shambles and there is such a shortage of people to take up the mantle. Frankly I think they’re all too cowardly to take on the big losses that are coming almost inevitably based on the current polling, that they don’t want to do it.”
