LONDON: The chairman of Britain`s hard-right Reform UK party quit on Thursday, saying that trying to get the upstarts elected to government was no longer `a good use of my time`.

Zia Yusuf`s announcement came after he criticised the party`s newest MP for asking Prime Minister Keir Starmer whether he would ban the wearing of burgas in the UK. The resignation hints at unrest in arch-Eurosceptic Nigel Farage`s party, which has already lost one MP since it secured a breakthrough result at last July`s general election.

`Eleven months ago I became chairman of Reform.

I`ve worked full time as a volunteer to take the party from 14 to 30 percent (voter support), quadrupled its membership and delivered historic electoral results, Yusuf wrote on X.

`I no longer believe working to get a Reform government elected is a good use of my time, and hereby resign the office,` he added.

Earlier, the 38-year-old had slammed Sarah Pochin, who was elected in a by-election last month, for her question to Starmer on Wednesday. `I do think it`s dumb for a party to ask the PM if they would do something the party itself wouldn`t do,` Yusuf wrote on X.

He became chairman in July last year, shortly after Reform won 14 percent of the vote and five seats in parliament an unprecedented haul for a hard-right groupin aBritishgeneralelection.

Yusuf was tasked with professionalising the group`s grassrootsoperationsandtrainingupcandidatesahead of what Farage has said will be a major challenge to Starmer`s Labour party at the next general election, likely in 2029.

Anti-immigrant Reform has consistently led national opinion polls for several weeks now and won hundreds of councillors at local polls on May 1.

Farage said he was `genuinely sorry` that Yusuf had decided to stand down, but some analysts saw it as another example of the charismatic Brexit cheerleader falling out with a senior figure in his party.

`It`s like deja vu all over again,` political scientist Tim Bale wrote on X, citing Farage`s previous leadership of UKIP and the Brexit Party.

`No-one but no-one gets to be bigger than big Nige, added the Queen Mary University of London politics professor.

Last month, former Reform lawmaker Rupert Lowe called Farage a `viper` after his dramatic suspension from the party over claims he had threatened Yusuf.

Prosecutors did not charge Lowe, citing `insufficient evidence`.-AFP