Kemi Badenoch Criticised For Hiring Former Neo Nazi Advisor

Kemi Badenoch has been condemned after making a former neo-Nazi a Tory Party adviser.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine was given the role after he stood down as an election candidate following a furious backlash from Jewish groups.

Bonehill-Paine 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.

Badenoch said he has since recanted his previous views and now works to combat anti-semitism.

In a statement posted on X on Wednesday, Bonehill-Paine said: “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.”

Badenoch said she had made Bonehill-Paine an adviser on “tackling radicalisation” to the Tories’ Culture and Integration Commission.

“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,” she said.

But Berger, who is now a Labour peer, condemned the decision.

She said: “The decision to welcome this individual as an adviser to the leader of the Opposition is no better than allowing him to stand as a council candidate.

“It is a privileged and influential national role. As a victim of this man’s heinous crimes, this appointment is an insult.”

Labour Party chair Bridget Phillipson said: “It beggars belief that Kemi Badenoch was happy for a former neo-Nazi to stand in the first place. That she has gifted him a plum job further adds to that shame.

A Reform UK spokesman said: “Joshua Bonehill-Paine, a self-professed fascist who has been jailed for publishing antisemitic material, will now have a say over national Conservative Party policy. This is alarming news for the Jewish community in Britain.”

But Phil Rosenberg, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, said it was a positive move.

Mr Rosenberg, who declined an offer from the Conservatives to meet the would-be councillor, told Times Radio: “I think it is good to use the experiences of people who have themselves been down this track to counter radicalisation in other places.

“Him playing a role specifically in education around these matters is more appropriate, certainly more appropriate than him standing as a local politician.”

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