Former Neo Nazi Can Run For Council Not MP, Badenoch Says

A former neo-Nazi who was jailed for posting anti-semitic material and harassing a Jewish MP can become a Tory councillor but not an MP, Kemi Badenoch has declared.

The Conservative leader said what Joshua Bonehill-Paine did in the past was “appalling and abhorrent” and he should not be given a “national platform”.

But she said it was fine for him to become a councillor because they only deal with things like “parking and putting out bins”.

Badenoch has come under fire from Jewish groups over her party’s decision to let Bonehill-Paine stand for election to Somerset Council.

He was convicted in 2014 of malicious communications over an anti-Islam hoax that led to death threats against the owners of a pub in Leicester.

Bonehill-Paine – the creator of the online satirical publication the Crewkerne Gazette – was jailed for more than three years in 2015 after posting anti-semitic material online ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally.

The following year, he was found guilty of racially-aggravated harassment of the Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger.

He has since recanted his previous anti-semitic views and now works with the Home Office on anti-radicalisation programmes.

Berger, who is now a Labour peer, told HuffPost UK she is “beyond upset and angry” that Badenoch is allowing him to stand for the Tories.

On Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Badenoch defended her decision.

She said: “I did hear what Luciana had to say and I do understand Lady Berger’s position.

“What he did was appalling and abhorrent.”

She added: “I looked at this case very carefully, this was a judgment call, and this is someone who has served his sentence. But also it is about what he is doing right now.

“This is a man who is talking about how in his late teens and early 20s he was radicalised. He became a racist and an anti-semite.

“What Luciana is talking about is not rehabilitation, but forgiveness. I can understand that she might not want to forgive this man. I might not if I had been his victim.

“But I am not giving him a national platform. He is standing to be a councillor in Somerset. It is a local platform, looking at parking, putting out bins, that’s what councillors do. It’s not a national platform.”

Badenoch said her party “have much higher thresholds” for becoming an MP.

She said: “This man is not standing to be an MP. There’s a huge difference.

“At a local level, where someone is actively working on anti-radicalisation, fighting for Jewish people knowing the harm that he caused – he did a lot of terrible things, I do not minimise that at all.

“This is a judgement call, and I think in this case he should be allowed to stand.”

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