Former neo-Nazi withdraws as Tory candidate amid communal anger

Convicted neo-Nazi Joshua Bonehill-Paine has announced he was withdrawing as a Conservative council candidate to avoid “other political parties will spend all their time focusing on my past “.

Kemi Badenoch said she was “sad” about his decision to withdraw as a local council election candidate, but added: “I am glad he is going to work with me and the party on tackling radicalisation.”

The former neo-Nazi claimed he had now been offered a role as an “adviser to the Conservative Party’s culture and integration commission.”

Jewish Labour peer Baroness Berger, along with communal leaders, has piled pressure on the Tory leader to drop Bonehill-Paine from standing as the Tories’ candidate in a local election in Somerset.

Berger responded to confirmation of his new role posting on X:”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.”

He was convicted of racially aggravated harassment against Berger when she was a Labour MP, posting messages on his blog calling her a “rodent” and “evil money-grabber”.

In 2015 he was jailed after producing an advert for a neo-Nazi rally in Golders Green, illustrated with a picture of Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, which promised “an absolute gas”.

In a lengthy statement, Bonehill-Paine said that if he stood as a candidate, “other political parties will spend all their time focusing on my past rather than the work I’m doing today, or even fighting antisemitism in their own midst”.

He said: “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.

“I have therefore informed the party of my decision to withdraw from next year’s council election, and Kemi has instead offered that I become an adviser to the Conservative Party’s culture and integration commission, specifically focusing on how young men become radicalised.”

Bonehill-Paine said he needed to “show the Jewish community how much I regret my previous actions”.

Badenoch said she was “sad” that he “won’t be given the space to explain his position and represent his community”.

She added that he 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 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.

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

Crewkerne’s MP said Kemi Badenoch “has not accepted her party got this wrong”, referring to the Conservatives’ original decision to select Joshua Bonehill-Paine as a local election candidate.

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 antisemitism 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.”