A former neo-Nazi tonight withdrew as a Tory council candidate after Jewish groups expressed their outrage at his selection by the party.
Joshua Bonehill-Paine had been selected to fight the Crewkerne South ward in Somerset for the Conservatives next May.
But he will no longer contest the ward for the Tories, saying in a social media post that he needed to ‘show the Jewish community how much I regret my previous actions’.
He was jailed in 2016, after he was convicted of racially aggravated harassment against Baroness Luciana Berger, who is Jewish.
Bonehill-Paine wrote several blog posts about the peer, who was Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree at the time, in which he described her as ‘an evil money-grabber’ with a ‘deep-rooted hatred of men’.
In one post, he claimed the number of Jewish Labour MPs was a ‘problem’.
He was previously jailed for producing an advert for a neo-Nazi rally illustrated with a picture of Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz which promised ‘an absolute gas’.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who had earlier defended allowing Bonehill-Paine to stand as a party candidate, said she was ‘sad’ that Mr Bonehill-Paine ‘won’t be given the space to explain his position and represent his community’.
Joshua Bonehill-Paine had been selected to fight the Crewkerne South ward in Somerset for the Conservatives next May
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said she was ‘sad’ that Mr Bonehill-Paine ‘won’t be given the space to explain his position and represent his community’
Mrs Badenoch added that Bonehill-Paine would now work with the Conservatives on tackling radicalisation as part of the party’s culture and integration commission.
She said: ‘If we are going to stop extremism and anti-Semitism 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.
‘Piling on them and trying to get them cancelled may be sport for other parties, but this is a different Conservative Party.’
In a post on X, Bonehill-Paine said: ‘The last 24 hours have shown that a lot of people do not understand how terrible I feel about the things I did when I was much younger.
‘I know that my previous actions continue to cause pain in the Jewish community. I had thought that getting involved in my local council and working hard for my community was a good way to show how much I have changed and that I want to give something back.
‘I realise now that the fight against anti-Semitism is something that I actually need to do more of, I need to show the Jewish community how much I regret my previous actions and how hard I will work to fight to help destroy anti-semitism and rebuild trust.’
He added that Mrs Badenoch had offered him a position as an adviser to the Conservatives’ culture and integration commission ‘specifically focusing on how young men become radicalised’.
Mrs 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 as part of our culture and integration commission.’
Reform UK said it ‘beggars belief’ that Mrs Badenoch had given Bonehill-Paine an advisory role.
A party spokesman said: ‘It beggars belief that Kemi Badenoch has hired a former neo-Nazi.
‘Joshua Bonehill-Paine, a self-professed fascist who has been jailed for publishing anti-Semitic material, will now have a say over national Conservative Party policy.
‘This is alarming news for the Jewish community in Britain.’
Bonehill-Paine is the man behind the viral satirical website the Crewkerne Gazette
Adam Dance, the Liberal Democrat MP whose Yeovil constituency includes Crewkerne, said: ‘This withdrawal is the right outcome but it should never have got to this point.
‘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 anti-Semitism as ‘piling on’. That is a troubling message to send.
‘Residents in Crewkerne and across our county will rightly question a Conservative leader who seems more focused on defending her judgment than addressing why this candidate was selected in the first place.’
Baroness Berger and Jewish groups had earlier demanded Mrs Badenoch rethink the decision to allow Bonehill-Paine to stand for the Tories.
But the Conservative leader said she believed he had been rehabilitated and pointed to how he had been certified by the Home Office to train police officers on anti-Semitism and countering extremism.
‘This man is showing that he is more than contrite,’ Mrs Badenoch told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme as she defended Bonehill-Paine’s selection as a Tory candidate this morning.
‘He is actually working, training Prevent officers, speaking in universities and schools.
‘I am extremely worried about anti-Semitism, and what I feel is that if we can’t have the people who have previously been radicalised, who understand what went wrong and are part of the fight against anti-Semitism now.
‘If we’re saying no, no, no, you’re untouchable, then how can we pretend that we believe in rehabilitation?
‘I’m someone who’s quite sceptical about rehabilitation, and I see this man as somebody who has been rehabilitated.’
Mrs Badenoch acknowledged Bonehill-Paine’s past actions were ‘appalling, abhorrent even’, and said she understood Baroness Berger’s position.
‘I think what Luciana is talking about is not rehabilitation but forgiveness,’ she added. ‘I can understand that she does not want to forgive this man. I might not if I had been his victim.’
The Tory leader also insisted there is ‘a huge difference’ between allowing someone to stand as a council candidate and being a prospective MP.
‘I’m not giving him a national platform, he is standing to be a councillor in Somerset,’ she said.
‘It is a local platform looking at parking, sorting out bins, that’s what councillors do. It’s not a national platform.
‘I have much higher thresholds for what it takes to be a Conservative MP.’
Baroness Berger had earlier told the same programme: ‘There’s a big difference between going back into society and teaching others possibly about what you did and why it was wrong, to making the leap to standing for public office.
‘I think there’s a massive distinction there and this is not just one-off hurty words. This is a man that engaged and indulged in a sustained campaign, not just against me, but many others.’
In a statement on X she said: ‘I don’t believe this man should have any role in public life – because of both his racism and his view of women.’
The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council said they would meet the Conservatives to discuss the party’s candidate selection decision, but declined to meet Bonehill-Paine himself.
In a joint statement, the two groups said: ‘The Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council have declined the Conservative Party’s invitation to meet with a former neo-Nazi with criminal convictions for anti-Semitic hatred.
‘The severity of Joshua Bonehill-Paine’s crimes targeting Luciana Berger and others mean that he still faces ongoing legal restrictions.
‘Whilst we do believe in the possibility of rehabilitation, this should not in this case entail selection as a candidate for a major political party, and the impact of this decision on the victims ought to be a central consideration.
‘We have agreed to meet the Conservative Party to discuss their decision-making processes and to urge them to rescind this decision.’
Dave Rich, director of policy at the Community Security Trust – a charity that provides advice to Jewish communities on security matters, told Times Radio: ‘The Conservative Party knows the Jewish community well and Kemi Badenoch has been very, very strong and outspoken against anti-Semitism.
‘So I have no doubts about her views at all. But I still think this is a situation where it’s completely understandable where a lot of people would look at this and say, well, he might be suitable to warn against extremism and antisemitism based on his own previous experiences.
‘But as a representative of the party and a local councillor, really, I think that a lot of people will find that a step too far.’
Lord Ian Austin, a former minister who quit Labour in 2019 over anti-Semitism, said: ‘There is no way this man should have been selected as a Conservative candidate and you have to ask what the Home Office think it is doing by working with him.
‘He was a neo-Nazi whose anti-Semitism was so extreme he was sent to prison, he subjected a female Jewish Labour MP to appalling abuse and harassment and he is reported to have been involved in a rally in London calling for the ‘dejewishfication’ of Britain. His posters said it will be a ‘gas gas gas’.
‘Maybe he has changed but that does not mean he is fit to represent the Tory Party. They should drop him immediately.’
Labour MP Mark Sewards said: ‘At a time when the Jewish community is facing unprecedented anti-Semitism, political parties have a duty to apply the highest standards for representatives and candidates.
‘The Labour party spent years ripping the scourge of anti-Semitism out by its roots, and any party opening a door to extremism is deeply troubling.’
But Lord Michael Gove, the former Tory Cabinet minister, said ‘contrition, forgiveness, rehabilitation and repentance is absolutely critical’ in the case of Bonehill-Paine.
‘I think this individual who committed some terrible, terrible crimes has not just repented, not just served his time and acknowledged his fault, but is now working to stop other young people going down the path that he went down,’ he told Times Radio.
‘I was a justice secretary, I think that the importance of contrition, forgiveness, rehabilitation and repentance is absolutely critical.
‘None of us should be defined by the worst thing that we’ve ever done … here you have an individual who has not just served his time but is committed to putting right his sins.
‘The idea that a past error acknowledged and repented of should be a barrier to future public service I think is completely wrong… The idea that people can’t change or improve is fatal for society.’
Green Party leader Zack Polanski said no one should be pushed out of public life ‘permanently’, adding there should be ‘spaces for people to rehabilitate, no matter what they say or no matter how heinous what they do is’.
‘I don’t know the circumstance of this individual councillor, so I’m going to be careful about wading in on a case that I don’t know the detail on, but I do believe in rehabilitation,’ he told a press conference on Wednesday.
Bonehill-Paine said on Tuesday he had ‘no excuses’ for his past offending and added he has since dedicated himself to ‘challenging the wave of hatred British Jews continue to face’.
He is the man behind the viral satirical website the Crewkerne Gazette.
The page, which has more than 40,000 followers on X and more than 50,000 on YouTube, features AI-generated videos depicting various real-life politicians, including Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, Mrs Badenoch, shadow home secretary Chris Philp and Prime Minister Andy Burnham.
Barristers for Reform UK on Wednesday reported Bonehill-Paine to the Electoral Commission over his social media videos.
Nigel Farage’s party requested an investigation into whether political material he posted was published on behalf of the Conservatives.
Mrs Badenoch said: ‘I don’t watch the videos. I don’t even like those videos. I hate AI deepfakes.
‘He seems to like lots of politicians and makes fun of all politicians. But that’s by the by, it’s the work that he is doing on anti-Semitism.
‘That’s the main thing he’s doing. The videos on Twitter are a sideshow.’
