Andy Burnham's 'unwillingness' to stage 'diplomatic standoff' with France over migrant crisis blasted by Zia Yusuf

At Reform’s party conference in Birmingham on Friday, the man widely tipped to be France’s next leader agreed to a pact to end the small boat crisis forever.

Jordan Bardella, who leads National Rally alongside Marine Le Pen, was joined on stage by Nigel Farage to sign a "memorandum of understanding", committing to their cooperation should the pair win their respective nation’s next general elections.

Discussing the document on GB News, Mr Yusuf told presenter Christopher Hope that Mr Farage has worked "very hard" on the agreement with his French counterpart.

He said: "One of the questions that we wanted to seek to answer with this conference is can Reform actually get things done? Because Britain has not been short of politicians claiming and promising the world.

"The Tories promised in four consecutive manifestos to cut immigration to tens of thousands and then imported 10 million people."

Mr Yusuf declared he is "very proud" of the document created with Mr Bardella and that it is the "most important memorandum of understanding signed between two opposition parties in Europe."

Andy Burnham has been blasted by Zia Yusuf after signing a 'memorandum of understanding' with France's Jordan Bardella

PA / GB NEWS

Challenging Mr Yusuf, Christopher asked the Reform spokesman: "But neither of you are in power. If you don't win next year, is it for the birds?"

Mr Yusuf responded: "Well if somebody else wins, we've always said we're serious about the plan. There is an alternative path, one in which the French Government is not going to be too happy about it. The reality in that scenario is we have a diplomatic standoff.

"And if the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is unwilling to have a diplomatic standoff about the invasion of this country by hundreds of thousands of largely adult military aged men from countries - some of whom have literally attempted mass casualty terrorist attacks on our soil - I don't know what you would have a diplomatic row about."

The Reform spokesman made clear that the document is just a small testament of the work Mr Farage is doing, without being elected as Prime Minister.

He argued: "The point I want to make about this is it is Nigel Farage delivering in the way that we can as an opposition party with a handful of MPs, by the way, outside of office.

"Just imagine what Prime Minister Farage is going to be able to do if we win."

Turning to the recent undercover sting on Reform, Christopher pressed Mr Yusuf on whether the party is "letting people down with these mistakes" and whether he would like to "apologise" for what happened.

Mr Yusuf told GB News: "With regards to the donation stuff, I've said it before, I say it again, the party is taking it seriously.

Mr Yusuf told GB News that the party is taking the allegations surrounding party donations 'seriously'

GB NEWS

"We've commissioned an investigation, I don't want to prejudice by commenting on it, but the most important thing to say is that, look, nothing goes up in a straight line. I came from the world of business, I've been in politics for just over two years, working with Nigel.

"Every single one of those days, there's been some ups, there's been some downs. There's been a lot more ups than there have been downs."

He concluded: "For a lot of people in this country, and frankly all the people here, they see Nigel and this movement as their last chance. Now, are we perfect? No. Do I think we bring something new and fresh to British politics? Yes.

"Yes, we've slipped a little bit in the polls in the last few months, but what we have already achieved in a short few years is unlike anything before in British politics. We've broken the two party duopoly that has existed basically for 100 years."