UK Conservatives select former neo-Nazi activist to run in local council election
The UK’s Conservative Party has selected a former neo-Nazi activist convicted of harassing a Jewish lawmaker to run as its candidate in Somerset local council election, the Guardian reported Monday,
Joshua Bonehill-Paine, 33, has been convicted of multiple crimes, and used to refer to himself as a “nationalist, fascist, theorist and supporter of white rights,” the report said. He was convicted in 2014 of assaulting a police officer, according to the report, and the following year he went to jail for more than three years for posting antisemitic material in advance of a neo-Nazi rally.
The year after that, he was also found guilty of harassing Luciana Berger, who is Jewish and was then an MP for the Labour Party, calling her a “rodent” and an “evil money-grabber,” the Guardian reported.
He ran a group called the “National British Resistance.”
Bonehill-Paine, who now publishes satirical AI videos, told the outlet that he has served his time and has come clean about his past.
“The branch and indeed party are fully aware of my past. Our chairman has been a vocal advocate and has supported me since I became a member of the party. I am very grateful for the support,” he told the Guardian.
Bonehill-Paine has said he has owned up to his mistakes and is a different person after his time in prison.
“I regret my past and the mistakes that I have made. For me, I can’t move away from them because of the nature of the antisemitism that once ruled my life,” he said in a YouTube video earlier this year. In another video explaining his changed views and recent activism, he said: “I felt very angry at how I had treated the Jewish community in this country. I wanted to do something to rectify it.
“I went across the country to colleges, schools, university, working with the probation service, the police service, to try and help prevent other people from following in my footsteps,” he said.
???? NEW: A former neo-Nazi, Joshua Bonehill-Paine, has been selected as a Tory candidate for a Somerset council election He........
