THE Scottish Conservatives have been urged to rule out standing Nazi candidates after a former extremist was picked to represent the party down south.
Russell Findlay has been warned that “we cannot allow this to happen here in Scotland” after convicted antisemite Joshua Bonehill-Paine was announced as the Tory candidate for upcoming council elections in Somerset.
Bonehill-Paine has since announced that he would be stepping down as a candidate to work as an adviser to the Tories' culture and integration commission, with a focus on the radicalisation of young men.
SNP MP Seamus Logan said: “It is astonishing that the Tories will stand a former Nazi in England and we cannot allow this to happen here in Scotland.
“There is a very simple question – will the Scottish Tories stand Nazi candidates in the Scottish council elections next year?
“Russell Findlay must join calls to remove this convicted antisemite as a candidate and confirm if any of these Nazi types come calling at his door to stand in Scotland, he will in under no circumstances allow it.
“There can be zero tolerance on antisemitism and Russell Findlay must be absolutely clear on this.”
Bonehill-Paine’s selection was defended by Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who said he was a reformed character.
He was previously sentenced to prison for three years for spreading antisemitic material ahead of a neo-Nazi rally in one of Britain’s most Jewish areas.
Bonehill-Paine had created a flyer for the Golders Green hate rally which included a picture of Auschwitz and Nazi imagery.
He also has previous convictions for assaulting a police officer, burglary of a police station and was found guilty in 2016 for racially-aggravated harassment after an abuse campaign he launched against then-Labour MP Luciana Berger.
Berger, now a member of the House of Lords, on Tuesday called for Badenoch to change tack saying that the case “still haunts me”.
She wrote: “He was convicted for racial harassment for five specific blogs. But that wasn’t all – he’d published reams of deeply racist, misogynistic and pornographic material about me.”
Jewish community leaders this week turned down a meeting with the candidate, who now makes AI-generated videos under the name the Crewkerne Gazette on social media, saying he should not be standing as a representative for the Tories.
In a joint statement, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council said: “We have agreed to meet the Conservative Party to discuss their decision-making processes and to urge them to rescind this decision.”
Defending his selection on Wednesday, 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?”
But she suggested she would not allow him to stand as a parliamentary candidate.
Badenoch added: “I’m not giving him a national platform, he is standing to be a councillor in Somerset… it is a local platform looking at parking, sorting out bins.
“I have much higher thresholds for what it takes to be a Conservative MP.”
The Scottish Conservatives were approached for comment.
