Last night the Chairman of Reform UK Zia Yusuf called me a liar in an unhinged attack. I’m not – nor am I the enemy of Nigel Farage’s insurgent party. So let me explain the true position…
Outspoken is an independent platform and will never act as a propagandist for any political organisation
Dan Wootton Outspoken is pleased to partner with Gundry MD – Dr Gundry has a history of supporting those aged over 50 from making huge mistake for their health. Find out what those mistakes are today by clicking here.
This Outspoken Substack is the exclusive home of my original journalism, columns AND now, by popular demand, the Uncancelled Aftershow. It is a safe space free of censorship and, your support from just £5 a month, not only gives you 30 minutes of extra content every weekday, but it also means you are helping me create an independent media revolution. With the corrupt MSM now controlled by billionaire corporate overlords and dark establishment forces, I am no longer owned by anybody other than you. Subscribing also allows you to read all the posts exclusively for paid members, access to the full archive, the ability to comment on articles and engage in debate with me, join my regular chats on the Substack app, and send me direct messages.
The past few weeks, with Reform UK charging to the top of the national political polls in Britain ahead of critical local elections, two different groups of commentators have emerged on the British right.
The first are those who have presented themselves as independent but deep down are part of the party’s unofficial team or Nigel Farage’s inner circle.
I am not for a second disparaging these good people – many of them like Matt Goodwin, Darren Grimes, Alex Phillips, Andre Walker and Lois Perry are my friends and have regularly appeared on Outspoken as guests. I love their work; I respect their views; and I understand what they are attempting to do and why.
Fundamentally, this group believe they will probably best serve their country by being aligned with a party, which they no doubt hope at some point will select them in a safe seat or parachute them into the House of Lords. All those folk I’ve mentioned above would be excellent Cabinet ministers in a potential Reform administration.
I even know of GB News presenters who have held discussions with the party about taking on a Karoline Leavitt-style role as the party’s official spokesperson.
Just like for Farage himself and a whole other group of recent hosts on the former free speech channel (Jacob Rees-Mogg, Miriam Cates, Michelle Dewberry and Martin Daubney to name a few), broadcasting is the means to achieve a personal political goal.
I come from a very different background and have a very different goal: Independent journalism to bring the truth to the people and, in turn, help save the United Kingdom from its current dire predicament.
The only way to do this is from a position of total honesty.
When I was cancelled from the MSM, I made a pledge to you that I would be owned by nobody. For too long, I had seen the caustic impact of billionaire moguls, ambitious executives or politically compromised editors putting their own interests ahead of that of their readers and viewers.
With the independent media revolution, never again would those compromises be made on Outspoken.
Which brings me to the Reform UK civil war.
To be clear, I have never had any personal issues with Nigel, unlike many others on the right. I proudly put him on my show on the very first night of GB News, encouraged him to host the 7pm primetime slot at the time the channel was on its knees following the departure of Andrew Neil, and kept in regular contact with him after my suspension and eventual sacking from the station. He was a supportive colleague and, even though he publicly attacked Father Calvin Robinson and Laurence Fox following our exits, he was very kind about me.
However, being honest and transparent about my vote should not have been confused with shilling or being a propagandist for the party.
In the past, I have been honest with you about my support for Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, too. But I have never become a member of a political party in the UK. Any approaches or overtures have been immediately rejected and will continue to be. Just like suggestions (before my cancellation I might add) that I should consider a mayoral run or look for a safe seat.
Never ever ever.
Not because I don’t have the utmost respect for the people who do that, but because I am a journalist in my heart and in my soul. Reporting has been in my veins since I was 15 and I received my first byline in Wellington, New Zealand’s dearly departed Evening Post newspaper.
MSM WANT TO DESTROY REFORM
The Outspoken daily show launched the day after the 2024 general election, where Reform UK ended up with five MPs in the House of Commons – four of whom I knew personally and had developed either a friendship or close professional relationship – and an outsized influence in the MSM and political sphere.
I would report on Reform in a way the legacy media would not. Those fools (Nick Robinson, Beth Rigby, Paul Brand and the like) genuinely believe Reform UK is full of “far right” extremists who simply must be destroyed. By contrast, I am well aware they are patriots who want to save the UK from imminent destruction, just like I do.
In my early shows, I covered Channel 4’s crooked reporting about Reform during their election campaign, James O’Brien and Emily Maitlis’s unfair attacks on Nigel putting his safety at risk, and his bravery for being the only senior politician to call out the Southport Massacre cover up for what it was.
In other words, I was pretty supportive of Reform at a time when their mission aligned with mine. Indeed, an invitation was even offered for me to speak at the party’s first annual conference about the plague of the government censors the Ofcommunists.
But within weeks, something changed.
Nigel, based on advice from his new chairman Zia Yusuf and various pollsters, had decided that tacking to the centre was the only way to enter Number 10 as PM.
Everything became about avoiding being labelled “far right”. Nigel decided his election result didn’t meet expectations because of the MSM obsession over patriotic candidates who might have tweeted their support of Tommy Robinson or concerns about Islam many years ago and should have, he believed, failed vetting.
Nigel’s inner circle decided there was more risk of him being asked questions about mass deportations by the brilliant Steven Edginton on GB News than facing an interrogation on Woke ITV.
I covered this change and expressed my obvious concerns – shared by much of the Outspoken audience – that Nigel was rowing back from his long-held concerns about demographic change, booting millions of illegals out of the country and even NHS reform.
But I continued to host on my show any Reform guests who would agree to appear and gave them a fair crack of the whip, including Richard Tice, Andrea Jenkyns and Rupert Lowe.
On returning from their, at the time, successful Mar-a-Lago Club meeting with Elon Musk, I bumped into Nigel and Nick Candy the next night at an event and they were surprisingly prickly about my recent coverage of Reform.
Nothing would stop me pushing on, however, because my priority is serving you and not a political party.
FARAGE WANTS YUSUF TO “STEP DOWN” AS CHAIRMAN
Two seismic events changed everything.
First, Musk’s bold gambit to withdraw support from Farage and back Lowe left the leadership shaken and stirred.
Then, the fateful decision to report Lowe to the police and announce it via a strongly worded statement from Yusuf and Lee Anderson, blowing up party unity just two months before the local elections.
Even senior figures within the party were expressing horror to me that Yusuf, a bloke with zero political experience who was parachuted into the role because certain party bigwigs liked the idea of having a Muslim in charge to counteract claims of racism, had just defenestrated the party’s best performing MP using the revolting lawfare and woke HR tactics of the left.
I was personally disgusted. And even more concerned when briefed on suggestions that Lowe is suffering from dementia.
On the Monday, he chose to sit down with me on Outspoken for an in-depth interview about what happened. Just like the independent podcast phenomenon that supported the MAGA revolution in America, we spoke uninterrupted in a long-form conversation that created significant waves amongst Reform supporters.
As a result, Reform felt I had betrayed them. Senior figures furiously messaged me.
What they failed to understand is that I wasn’t a Goodwin; I was simply doing my job as an independent journalist getting to the bottom of this smear campaign.
As the weeks progressed and things got messier, those senior figures returned to chatting to me, with one explaining a conversation with Farage where he insisted he had been unaware of the statement Yusuf released that Friday night and was intending to see him “step down” as chairman well before the general election.
Rather than cover that information up, I told you about it yesterday. It was honest. I absolutely know that conversation with Nigel happened. I know where it happened – at what time and what was said. Yusuf does not. That said, as a journalist, I would go to jail to protect my sources.
INCREDIBLY THIN SKINNED
Needless to say, I was stunned last night when Yusuf – who knows I am always available to speak privately – posted publicly on X a shocking attack.
He wrote: “Sure, and did our Chief Whip also know nothing about it despite being a co-author? 😂 Dan, at some point just making stuff up every day must get boring, surely? We’ve built something special at Reform, so you can huff and puff. You won’t blow our house down. Have a great easter weekend!”
To suggest I am attempting to destroy Reform is unhinged and also completely untrue.
Just as it is to say that I am “making stuff up” when every single story I report about Reform is backed up by multiple sources.
Given he had gone public, I replied on X:
You’re incredibly thin skinned for a man who wants to lead a party into government.
Treating someone like me who voted for Reform UK and features your allies most days on a genuinely independent platform as an enemy is utterly insane.
My source today was a senior member of Reform based on a direct conversation with Nigel last week - I know exactly what he said and you don’t.
I will continue to support Reform and give you a fair crack of the whip, while keeping you honest. What any good independent journalist should do.
Perhaps you or Nigel should try talking to the independent media and help create a MAGA style revolution in Britain.
Unfortunately, unlike GB News I will not refuse to interview other good folks on the right like Rupert Lowe or Ben Habib. But that does not mean I am working against Reform.
I’m a journalist not a propagandist as I have always told you when directly requesting decent Reform reps to appear on Outspoken.
Unlike many others who claim to be independent, I am not trying to be a Reform candidate.
Always ready to continue the conversation and chat with you for our viewers, who are what matters.
The independent media revolution is coming. Don’t be afraid of it - embrace it!
Jackie Clinch replied to me: Sorry Dan, I will still be voting Reform, it’s the only way to get rid of Labour, if the Tories replaced Kemi with Jenrick then, things could change.”
And that is the insanity of what Yusuf has done. Because I have never once suggested people shouldn’t vote for Reform on Thursday, May 1.
I replied: I think you’re absolutely right to vote for Reform at the locals and have never once said otherwise despite @ZiaYusufU confusing honest reporting with a political opinion.
REFORM’S MOVE TO THE CENTRE
Now the reality is that this week Reform admitted publicly it viewed itself as a centrist party appealing to centre-left voters.
I will struggle to keep on voting for the party if that becomes their genuine position and they roll back the policies that made them popular in the first place.
We are four years out from a general election and my job is not to shill for any one outfit but try to help open the Overton Window on the issues that really matter – no one who reads or watched Outspoken is in any doubt what I believe those are.
Robert Jenrick is doing genuinely exciting work within the Conservative party, although I would find it hard to ever trust that shower of a party again. But what if he became leader with Suella Braverman his deputy and Lowe as shadow home secretary?
What if Ben Habib manages to turn The Integrity Party into a genuine force with big money backing and a people’s army, including Tommy supporters, who have been brutally thrust out of Reform?
There are a multitude of other what ifs.
And everyone knows Slippery Starmer and his communist government are destroying our country at such a rapid rate that anything could happen; perhaps a new force could emerge just like Macron did in France.
My point is it’s not for me to shape what happens politically, but rather hold all parts of the right to account and give them an open platform that is often denied by the legacy media, including GB News (which, by the way, has banned its reporters from interviewing Lowe at the behest of Farage in another antidemocratic outrage).
And that goes for Reform, too.
I am not regulated by the Ofcommunists – I’d love Farage and Yusuf to appear on Outspoken and answer my questions.
For the moment, senior Reform figures tell me the MSM and centrist strategy comes from trying to appeal to upset former Labour voters and sensible old school Tories.
I know for a fact those two groups make up a decent percentage of the 126 million views we have had on Outspoken’s YouTube channel alone.
That approach also fundamentally misunderstands the potential for engaging with the independent media to lead to electoral success as has just happened so beautifully with Trump across the Atlantic.
As I told Yusuf last night, to regard me as the enemy is to completely miss the point about the changing media and political climate.
Anyone else seeing a pattern emerge? As in a multitude of countries over 1400 years, islam is now destroying Reform from within.
Dan please stay strong we need you to give your balanced views of what is going on ! Zia (ReformUk) Is just trying to bully you !