Ex neo-Nazi activist withdraws as Tory election candidate

A former neo-Nazi selected by the Conservatives to fight a council election next year has pulled out after a backlash against his candidacy.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine was convicted of racially harassing Jewish former Labour MP Luciana Berger in 2016, while already serving a separate jail sentence for sharing antisemitic posts.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch had defended the decision to select him as a candidate for the new Somerset Council seat of Crewkerne South, saying he had been rehabilitated and her party “believes in second chances”.

But Bonehill-Paine said he had now withdrawn his candidacy, and had been offered a position as an anti-extremism adviser to the party.

In a social media post, he said the position with the Conservative Party’s Culture and Integration Commission would focus on advising on how to prevent young men from being radicalised.

Bonehill-Paine spent three years in prison after he was jailed in 2015 for posting antisemitic material ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally.

A year later in 2016, he was convicted of racially harassing then-Labour MP Berger, who now sits as Baroness Berger in the House of Lords.

He has described his past views as “indefensible” and says he has spent years opposing antisemitism since leaving prison in 2018.

But the party’s decision to pick him for the Somerset seat sparked a huge political backlash, with Jewish groups declining the offer of a meeting with the party and Baroness Berger saying he should be barred from standing for public office.

In his social media post, Bonehill-Paine said his candidacy would prompt opposition parties to “spend all their time focusing on my past rather than the work I’m doing today”.

“Rather than standing as a local council candidate, I believe that my experience is better used supporting Kemi Badenoch in her ongoing mission to combat the antisemitism and extremism that is dividing our nation,” he added.

In a social media post, Badenoch said: “While I am sad that Joshua feels he won’t be given the space to explain his position and represent his community, I am glad he is going to work with me and the party on tackling radicalisation.”

“If we are going to stop extremism and antisemitism we are going to need help from those people who were part of the problem, but have now changed and are being part of the solution,” she added.

“Piling on them and trying to get them cancelled may be sport for other parties, but this is a different Conservative Party.”

But Reform UK hit out at Badenoch’s decision to offer him the adviser role, with a spokesman saying it “beggars belief” and was “alarming news for the Jewish community in Britain”.