{"id":727969,"date":"2026-08-05T06:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T06:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/727969\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T06:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T06:04:07","slug":"tories-offer-jewish-groups-meeting-with-ex-neo-nazi-activist-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/727969\/","title":{"rendered":"Tories offer Jewish groups meeting with ex neo-Nazi activist candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Conservatives have offered Jewish groups a meeting with their council election candidate, Joshua Bonehill-Paine, who spent time in prison for neo-Nazi activism.<\/p>\n

The party has been criticised over the decision to select him to stand for a seat on Somerset Council next year, but Kemi Badenoch has said she is standing by Bonehill-Paine because she wants to give him a second chance. <\/p>\n

He has described his past views as “indefensible” and now speaks out against extremism.<\/p>\n

The Board of Deputies of British Jews has called on the Conservatives to ditch him as a candidate, saying the selection “beggars belief”.<\/p>\n

It is understood the party has now offered the Board, as well as the Jewish Leadership Council and the Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis, a meeting with Bonehill-Paine so they can discuss their concerns directly.<\/p>\n

When Bonehill-Paine’s selection was announced, Karen Newman, vice president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews – the largest body representing Jews in the UK – said that the board had contacted the Conservatives to “set out our concerns and call on them to rescind his selection and review their vetting processes.”<\/p>\n

Bonehill-Paine spent three years in prison for posting antisemitic material ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally. A year later he was convicted of racially harassing then-Labour MP Luciana Berger<\/a>. Berger is now a member of the House of Lords. <\/p>\n

Berger, reacting to the news of his selection on X, said he had, “published *reams* of deeply racist, misogynistic and pornographic material about me.” <\/p>\n

In an interview with the Today programme, she told the BBC: “I still live today with the profound and deep impacts of those events”. <\/p>\n

She suggested his “sustained campaign” against her should rule him out of the candidacy for a council seat.<\/p>\n

“I think that we need to have a bar when it comes to standing for public office,” she explained.<\/p>\n

“I strongly believe that this individual today falls very, very short of that.”<\/p>\n

Bonehill-Paine also holds previous convictions for assaulting a police officer, burglary of a police station and malicious communications.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday he was selected to stand as the Tory candidate in the new Somerset Council seat of Crewkerne South in 2027. He said he wanted to “give back” to a community which had supported him. <\/p>\n

Bonehill-Paine said he reformed his previous views when he learned of the murder of MP Jo Cox, and subsequently undertook a de-radicalisation programme. He now delivers counter-extremism sessions around the UK.<\/p>\n

He said: “When I was first released from prison in 2018, I was supported by many of the people in my local community who understood that I had made some awful mistakes but was wanting to change my life around.”<\/p>\n

Speaking on Tuesday, Tory leader Badenoch said Bonehill-Paine “is spending every day working to solve the very problem which he knew he had caused previously.<\/p>\n

“He’s going up and down the country training people and the Conservative Party believes in second chances.<\/p>\n

“This is not just someone that we’ve picked up who is a convicted criminal – this is somebody who is actively working to help communities, especially Jewish communities.”<\/p>\n

The decision to field Bonehill-Paine as a candidate has also been criticised by other political parties.<\/p>\n

Liberal Democrat MP Adam Dance, whose Yeovil constituency includes Crewkerne, said the Conservative Party needed to explain “why it believes this candidate is fit to serve”, while a Labour Party spokesperson said his selection was “a total disgrace”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Conservatives have offered Jewish groups a meeting with their council election candidate, Joshua Bonehill-Paine, who spent time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-727969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}