Conservatives face backlash after ex neo-Nazi selected for Somerset seat

The Conservatives have offered Jewish groups a meeting with Joshua Bonehill-Paine after selecting the former neo-Nazi activist as their candidate for Crewkerne South on Somerset Council. The move has turned a local nomination into a test of how far the party believes political rehabilitation can go, and whether its vetting can withstand a record of antisemitic abuse.

Bonehill-Paine’s past is severe. He was jailed over neo-Nazi activism, spent three years in prison for posting antisemitic material ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally, and was convicted in 2016 of racially aggravated harassment of Luciana Berger. He was also jailed for more than three years for inciting hatred against Jews. BBC News said he now speaks out against extremism, but his selection has reopened the details of the convictions and the online material that led to prison.

Kemi Badenoch defended the choice by saying the Conservative Party “believes in second chances”. That argument now sits at the centre of the row, because the party is asking Jewish groups to meet the candidate while also standing by a man whose history includes explicit far-right activism and antisemitic abuse. For the Conservatives, the issue is not only whether Bonehill-Paine has changed, but whether the party can show it properly assessed the risks before putting him forward in Somerset.

The reaction from Jewish figures has been sharply negative. Luciana Berger urged the Conservatives to drop him, and the Jewish Labour Movement called the decision “truly appalling”. Their response underscores the gap between the party’s rehabilitation argument and the concerns of those who were targeted by the abuse that put Bonehill-Paine in prison.

The dispute now hangs over the Crewkerne South selection and the Conservatives’ wider handling of extremism-linked candidates. The meeting offered to Jewish groups may yet become a forum for accountability, but for critics it already looks like damage control after a vetting failure that has handed a local council race national attention.