Ex-MP urges Tories to block council candidate jailed for antisemitic abuse against her

A former Labour MP has said the Conservatives should not allow a former neo-Nazi who was jailed for antisemitic abuse against her to stand as a local election candidate.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine was convicted of racially harassing Luciana Berger, who is Jewish, in 2016, while already serving a separate jail sentence for sharing antisemitic posts.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch has defended the decision to select him as a candidate in Somerset, saying that while his crimes were "appalling" he had been rehabilitated and was now "part of the fight against antisemetism".

But Baroness Berger said he should be barred from standing for public office - and Jewish groups have rejected a Tory invite to meet him.

Baroness Berger said Bonehill-Paine's harassment "affected my life in lots of different ways because of the volume of the material that he was disseminating and putting out, the extremity of it in terms of just frankly how shocking and awful it was".

The Labour peer added: "I think that we need to have a bar when it comes to standing for public office.

"I strongly believe that this individual today falls very, very short of that."

Bonehill-Paine spent three years in prison after he was jailed in 2015 for posting antisemitic material ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally.

A year later in 2016, he was convicted of racially harassing then-Labour MP Berger, a former shadow cabinet minister who is now a member of the House of Lords.

Baroness Berger attended court at the OId Bailey in London to give evidence in the trial of Bonehill-Paine.

In a Substack article, Baroness Berger said Bonehill-Paine had shown "no contrition" throughout the trial and claimed that at one point "he performed a full Nazi salute to his supporters in the public gallery".

"It told me everything I needed to know about how this individual saw the world, and about the utter contempt he held for the people he targeted," Baroness Berger wrote.

In sentencing remarks, the judge said it was "difficult to envisage a worse case than this of racially aggravated harassment of this kind", adding Bonehill-Paine had "sat in the dock smirking throughout the trial" and had "plainly enjoyed" Ms Berger's discomfort.

Baroness Berger resigned from Labour in protest at the handling of antisemitism allegations in 2019, before rejoining in 2023 after receiving an apology from former party leader Sir Keir Starmer.

Bonehill-Paine has described his past views as "indefensible" and says he has spent years opposing antisemitism since leaving prison.

In an article for the Conservative Home blog, external, published on Wednesday, Bonehill-Paine said he recognised his previous actions had "caused profound pain, particularly within the Jewish community".

"The recent announcement of my selection as the Conservative candidate for Crewkerne South on Somerset Council has been a stark reminder that those actions still cause hurt today," Bonehill-Paine wrote.

"That is entirely understandable, and I do not seek to diminish it."

In an article on his blog, external, Bonehill-Paine said he had an "epiphany" while reading the Bible in segregation cell while in prison, describing it as the "point at which my hatred finally began to lose its hold".

Speaking to the BBC, Badenoch said that while Bonehill-Paine's crimes were "appalling", she felt she had served his sentence, showed he was "more than contrite" and was now committed to tackling antisemitism.

Badenoch said: "I am extremely worried about antisemitism and what I feel is that if we can't have the people who have previously been radicalised, who understand what went wrong and are part of the fight against antisemitism now, if we're saying: 'No, no, no, you're untouchable,' then how can we pretend that we believe in rehabilitation?

"I'm someone who's quite sceptical about rehabilitation and I see this man as somebody who has been rehabilitated."

The Board of Deputies of British Jews has called on the Conservatives to ditch him as a candidate, saying the selection "beggars belief".

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.

But the meeting invite has been declined.

In a statement, the Board and the Jewish Leadership Council said: "The severity of Joshua Bonehill-Paine's crimes targeting Luciana Berger and others mean that he still faces ongoing legal restrictions.

"Whilst we do believe in the possibility of rehabilitation, this should not in this case entail selection as a candidate for a political party, and the impact of this decision on the victims ought to be a central consideration.

"We have agreed to meet the Conservative Party to discuss their decision making processes and to urge them to rescind this decision."

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."

Bonehill-Paine also holds previous convictions for assaulting a police officer, burglary of a police station and malicious communications.

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.

Bonehill-Paine said he reformed his previous views when he learned of the murder of MP Jo Cox in 2016, and subsequently undertook a de-radicalisation programme. He now delivers counter-extremism sessions around the UK.

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."

Bonehill-Paine is also the founder of the The Crewkerne Gazette, a viral satirical X page that publishes deepfake AI-generated videos of politicians, such as Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and Badenoch.

The decision to field Bonehill-Paine as a candidate has also been criticised by other political parties.

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".