A FORMER neo-Nazi with convictions for harassing a Jewish MP and assaulting a police officer has been selected as a Conservative candidate in upcoming local elections, it has emerged.
Joshua Bonehill-Paine, the creator of the viral Crewkerne Gazette series of AI videos, is standing as a Tory candidate in Somerset at council elections next year, The Guardian reports.
Bonehill-Paine has stressed that he is a reformed character and that the party is aware of his previous convictions.
In a statement to the paper, he said: “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 also claimed to be an executive member of the Tories’ Yeovil branch, working as an events organiser.
The candidate has previously described himself as a “nationalist, fascist, theorist and supporter of white rights” and was jailed for three years in 2015 after spreading “vile” antisemitic material ahead of a neo-Nazi rally.
He had created and posted a flyer for the event, which had been due to take place in Golders Green, London, one of the major centres of Britain’s Jewish community, which included a picture of Auschwitz and Nazi imagery.
The judge in the case said: “You were trying to encourage people, especially young people, to join in a demonstration in Golders Green against what you call ‘Jewification’. You did all you could to inflame the Jewish community to provoke a reaction from them.”
He also has convictions for assaulting a police officer and burglary of a police station and in 2014 was convicted for claiming a Leicester pub was refusing to serve members of the armed forces to avoid offending members of the Muslim community. For this, he received a two-year supervision order and was ordered to undertake 180 hours unpaid work.
In 2016, Bonehill-Paine, who is seeking to represent the Crewkerne South district in Somerset for the Tories, was found guilty of racially-aggravated harassment for abuse directed at the then Labour MP Luciana Berger, who is Jewish, which included posting messages online calling her a “rodent” and an “evil money-grabber”.
The Tory candidate also previously described himself as the founder and leader of a group called the National British Resistance, which Bonehill-Paine said aimed to create “a nationalist state that puts the common good of the British people first and expels the greedy Zionist element that has poisoned our country for too long”.
During his time in prison, Bonehill-Paine said that reading the Bible and watching the film The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas taught him his antisemitism was wrong,
He has also claimed to have done “very well” from investing in cryptocurrency and used some of his winnings to visit Beverly Hills, California upon his release from Belmarsh Prison.
Since then, Bonehill-Paine has styled himself as a satirist, boasting of gaining “over 200 million views” for his AI-generated videos released under the name Crewkerne Gazette.
The videos send up Westminster political figures but have been favourable to Tory leader Kemi Badenoch – who is currently embroiled in a row over allegedly freezing out moderate Conservatives from future selections.
Bonehill-Paine told The Guardian that his criminal convictions were spent and that he held various Home Office counter-extremism certifications.
A spokesperson for Reform UK – who have seen recent controversies with members standing alongside neo-Nazis and other far-right extremists – told The Guardian: “Kemi claims the Tories have changed and they will have a new generation of candidates – it’s now clear what calibre of candidates they will be. Kemi claims to support the fight against antisemitism yet selects a convicted antisemite Nazi as a candidate.
“The hypocrisy is breathtaking.”
Speaking on Tuesday morning, Badenoch backed the candidate, saying he was "not just someone that we've picked up who's a convicted criminal".
She added: "I think people can look at me and know that I'm not a person who would be recruiting neo-Nazis. Josh is someone who actually has been certified by the Home Office to train police officers on antisemitism and on countering extremism.
"Yes, he is somebody who had been previously convicted, but he is someone who has shown contrition for his crimes, has been rehabilitated and is spending every day working to solve the very problem which he knew he had caused previously. He's going up and down the country training people and the Conservative Party believes in second chances.
"This is not just someone that we've picked up who's a convicted criminal, this is somebody who is actively working to help communities, especially Jewish communities and this is what I want to see."
