Tory leader Kemi Badenoch’s decision to allow a former (albeit reformed) neo-Nazi to stand as a Conservative councillor hasn’t just raised questions about her judgement; it’s prompted wider concerns about her political strategy.
After a day of outrage, Joshua Bonehill-Paine saw the writing on the wall and stepped back. He’s the creator of the Crewkerne Gazette, a satirical online AI video account with a cult following.
Bonehill-Paine was convicted of racially harassing Jewish former Labour MP Luciana Berger in 2016, while already serving a separate jail sentence of more than three years for sharing antisemitic posts. He has since described his past views as “indefensible” and says he has spent years opposing antisemitism since leaving prison in 2018.
Leaving aside Badenoch’s verbal gymnastics – she managed to offend leaflet-delivering Tories by saying that, unlike MPs, councillors only deal with bins and parking – the row reignited concerns from the last remaining centrists in her party that Badenoch is wooing too narrow a tranche of voters.
The Crewkerne row comes shortly after she rejected centrist former Tory MPs as candidates for the next election. Centre-left Tories, who loosely group under the One Nation banner, worry she is sidelining both them and politically homeless voters who could be persuaded to vote Tory.
