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But Bonehill-Paine said he had now withdrawn his candidacy, and had been offered a position as an anti-extremism adviser to the party.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

Baroness Berger, who attended court at the OId Bailey in London to give evidence in Bonehill-Paine's trial, has said his past behaviour fell "very, very short" of the standard required to stand for public office.

Speaking earlier, she said Bonehill-Paine's harassment "affected my life in lots of different ways because of the volume of the material that he was disseminating and putting out, the extremity of it in terms of just frankly how shocking and awful it was".

In sentencing remarks, the judge said it was "difficult to envisage a worse case than this of racially aggravated harassment of this kind", adding Bonehill-Paine had "sat in the dock smirking throughout the trial" and had "plainly enjoyed" Baroness Berger's discomfort.

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 blog post earlier for ConservativeHome, he said his anti-extremism work had included delivering training sessions and seminars for institutions including universities, schools, colleges, and probation services.

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".

Adam Dance, Liberal Democrat MP for Yeovil, said Bonehill-Paine's withdrawal was "the right outcome, but it should never have got to this point".

He said: "What's most concerning now is Kemi Badenoch's response – she has not accepted her party got this wrong, and instead frames legitimate concern about antisemitism as 'piling on'. That is a troubling message to send."