Kemi Badenoch gives adviser role to former neo-Nazi candidate who quit
Luciana Berger, who was subjected to a campaign of abuse by Joshua Bonehill-Paine, says Badenoch's decision is "an insult"
Kemi Badenoch has handed an advisory role within the Conservative Party to a former neo-Nazi who resigned as a Tory candidate.
Badenoch said she was “sad” that Joshua Bonehill-Paine, who was convicted for racially aggravated harassment of former MP Luciana Berger, “won’t be given the space” to “represent his community” as a councillor in Somerset.
Bonehill-Paine also has a conviction for assaulting a police officer and burglary of a police station. He was also convicted for malicious communications over an anti-Islam hoax that led to the owners of a pub in Leicester receiving death threats.
After multiple politicians, including Lucy Powell MP, former MP Anna Soubry and Berger herself, condemned Badenoch’s decision to allow him to stand, Bonehill-Paine has now resigned.
Reacting to his resignation, Badenoch said she was “sad that Joshua feels he won’t be given the space to explain his position and represent his community”.
She added: “I am glad he is going to work with me and the party on tackling radicalisation as part of our Culture and Integration commission.”
“If we are going to stop extremism and antisemitism we are going to need help from those people who were part of the problem, but have now changed and are being part of the solution.
She continued: “Piling on them and trying to get them cancelled may be sport for other parties, but this is a different Conservative Party.
“Sometimes there will be difficult judgement calls, but right now I know that we are the only party actively working to unite the country rather than one particular faction or other.”
In his resignation statement, Bonehill-Paine said: “The last 24 hours have shown that a lot of people do not understand how terrible I feel about the things I did when I was much younger.”
He said that if he stood as a council candidate, other political parties would focus on his past rather than what he is doing now.
Bonehill-Paine added: “I have therefore informed the Party of my decision to withdraw from next year’s council election and Kemi has instead offered that I become an adviser to the Conservative Party’s Culture and Integration Commission, specifically focusing on how young men become radicalised.”
Berger, who is now a Labour peer, said Badenoch’s decision to appoint Bonehill-Paine as an advisor was “an insult”.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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