Zia Yusuf has accused Kanye West’s critics of jumping on a “bandwagon” amid mounting anger at the decision to book him to headline the Wireless festival this summer.

Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting and Sadiq Khan are among those who have condemned the move, while home secretary Shabana Mahmood is considering calls for him to be banned from entering the UK.

The Grammy-winning rapper has sparked anger in the past over his anti-semitic remarks, including releasing a song called ‘Heil Hitler’.

Wireless organisers have defended the booking, while West – who now calls himself Ye – has apologised for his previous comments and said he wants to “present a show of change, bringing unity, peace, and love through my music”.

In a statement on Tuesday morning, he said: “I would be grateful for the opportunity to meet with members of the Jewish community in the UK in person, to listen. I know words aren’t enough – I’ll have to show change through my actions. If you’re open, I’m here.”

Asked about the row on Sky News, Yusuf, who is Reform UK’s home affairs spokesman, said: “I think it’s fascinating that you’ve got Tory shadow ministers and the home secretary and the prime minister all weighing in on this particular individual.

“Obviously, he’s got songs that are openly anti-semitic, praising Hitler. It is deeply troubling that those songs would be played at a big auditorium in Britain.

“But what about this Bob Vylan character, who shouts extremely anti-semitic things at concert after concert and broadcast live on the BBC in many cases. Where is the condemnation of that?”

Presenter Kamali Melbourne pointed out to Yusuf that there was widespread condemnation of Bob Vylan following their appearance at Glastonbury last year, and then asked him again if West should be banned rom entering the UK.

He replied: “My view as home secretary would be that would been to have carefully considered in consultation with stakeholders, including the Jewish community.

“But I stand by the argument that it is absolutely a bandwagon that’s being jumped on.”

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Zia Yusuf furiously hit out at the BBC after Laura Kuenssberg queried the number of controversies surrounding Reform candidates.

The right-wing party has lost at least 67 candidates since May 2025, according to Lib Dem peer and polling expert Mark Pack.

In the last week, past social media posts from candidate Linda Holt referred to the former first minister of Scotland Hamza Yousaf as an “Islamist moron” – and the party has stood by her.

Corey Edwards was photographed appearing to perform the Nazi salute, and has since stood down from the upcoming Senedd elections in Wales.

Chris Parry, who was set to stand in a 2028 mayoral election before being dropped by Reform, compared a Jewish community group to “Islamists on horseback”.

Reform vowed last year that their vetting process would improve and they would not face the same problems they did during the general election.

When questioned over these controversies on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Yusuf said: “Firstly, all of that is abhorrent and the party has taken action on that.”

“Why does it keep happening?” The BBC presenter replied.

Reform’s home affairs spokesperson said: “Laura, Reform has vetted over a thousand candidates over the last couple of years.

“Even if our success rate is 99.9%, a handful will slip through.”

He then went on to attack the BBC, saying: “Yes, of course it’s reasonable to hold Reform to account.

“But what consistently happens is the BBC pounces on every single Reform mishap and gives it vastly disproportionate coverage in your news cycles – and completely ignores the far most voluminous misdemeanours and frankly egregious things from other parties do.”

But Kuenssberg cut in: “No, proportionally, Reform has lost more candidates over this kind of thing happening than other political parties.”

He claimed that was “actually incorrect” – before pointing to reports that Green activists had made a series of antisemitic remarks in a group chat.

He claimed a Green Party council candidate made that same claim but “the BBC hasn’t even reported on that and I think that’s unbecoming of the BBC.”

This is a reference to a story from The Telegraph about the Greens for Palestine group, one faction of the party.

A spokesperson told the newspaper: “We do not tolerate discrimination against anyone and also reject deliberate and disingenuous attempts to conflate Zionism and Judaism.”

The BBC has reported on antisemitism allegations within the Greens in the past, and how the party dropped candidates in the run-up to the 2024 general election over problematic or extreme social media posts.

The leader of Reform UK in Scotland, Malcolm Offord, was also asked this week if his party was “shambolic” after losing five Holyrood candidates in a matter of days.

He claimed: “I wouldn’t say it was shambolic, I’d say in fact he opposite. I would say we’ve done an extraordinary thing in a short space of time to interview over 300 candidates to get 73 wanting to stand.”

He claimed the party’s vetting process has been “terrific”, adding: “As I said, it’s gone from over 300 to 73 in six months.

“That’s an extraordinary achievements for a brand new party with a lot of very interesting people coming in, a really interesting mix of people of whom 80% have not been politicians before,” Offord said.

The Green Party has slammed Reform UK for letting the “cat out of the bag” after Zia Yusuf suggested poverty rates in Britain are misleading.

Reform’s head of policy got into a spat with Sky News’ Trevor Phillips on Sunday over his party’s plans to keep the two-child benefit cap while cutting business rates for pubs.

“Reform’s policy is to let children go hungry so their parents can get in an extra round?” Phillips asked.

Yusuf replied: “Nigel’s position always has been and still is that he would lift the two-child benefit cap only for British families who are in work.”

He then added: “When the term poverty is used, primarily by left-wing politicians, it’s a relative term which means you could literally – this is a mathematical fact – increase everyone’s incomes tenfold and the statistics would stay the same.”

Phillips asked if Yusuf was trying to say poverty levels are an “illusion”.

The Reform politician replied: “No, it’s worse than that because real poverty does exist in this country, Trevor.

“Absolute poverty does exist in small pockets, if you want to do the right thing in this country, you need to create social mobility.

“There will always be a percentage of the public who are ‘in poverty’, and what that does nothing for is to help the middle classes or indeed the people who live in absolute poverty.”

Yusuf then claimed there are “very, very small pockets” of poverty in Wales.

He said: “The measure of poverty which has been used for years in this country is an unhelpful thing because it is relative to the mean and the median, it means you are always going to have a percentage of people who are there and that is not in the interest of people who need it.”

More than 3.8 million people experienced destitution in 2022 including a million children, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

A Green Party spokesperson tore into Yusuf’s comments, telling HuffPost UK: “Reform have totally let the cat out of the bag this morning about what they really stand for.

“Zia Yusuf, a multi-millionaire, lecturing that poverty and people’s everyday struggles with rising bills and rent is exaggerated, shows what frauds Reform are.

“They are just another party of the failed status quo, funded by and representing big corporate interests.

“The Gorton and Denton by election is between the Greens and Reform.

“We are campaigning for lower bills and protecting public services by taxing millionaires and billionaires. Reform stand for the wealthy few.”

Reform, the Greens and Labour are all battling it out to win the crunch contest in Greater Manchester later this month, in the hope of securing another MP in the Commons.