Conservatives face backlash after selecting convicted antisemite as candidate

Joshua Bonehill-Paine withdrew as a Conservative candidate for Somerset Council’s Crewkerne South ward after a backlash over his neo-Nazi past forced the party to confront how he had been approved in the first place. The Conservatives had selected him in August 2026 and described the move as giving him a "second chance".

Bonehill-Paine’s record was already stark. He was convicted in December 2016 of racially aggravated harassment of former Labour MP Luciana Berger after writing five hate-filled blogs about her in 2014. Berger said the abuse made her feel "unsafe". Court reporting at the time said he received an additional two-year prison sentence and that he had already been serving a separate prison term for sharing antisemitic posts.

The nomination drew immediate criticism from Jewish groups and from Berger, who urged the Conservatives to drop him. The party then offered Jewish leaders a meeting with Bonehill-Paine, but they refused to meet him, deepening the row around a candidate whose far-right activism had already made him highly controversial.

Kemi Badenoch defended the selection by saying her party "believes in second chances." After the backlash, Bonehill-Paine said his experience would be better used to support Badenoch in tackling extremism, and he was offered an advisory role instead of standing for election.

The episode leaves the Conservatives facing sharper questions than a single withdrawal. Bonehill-Paine’s selection, despite a public record that included prison time for antisemitic material and a conviction tied to abuse of a Jewish MP, showed that the party’s safeguards did not stop a candidate with a neo-Nazi background from reaching the ballot line in Somerset.