Is defending a former neo-Nazi a new low for Kemi Badenoch?
Kemi Badenoch is backing a former neo-Nazi standing to become a Tory councillor in Somerset. She claims he has been rehabilitated in prison, but is she just too scared to “cancel” someone on her side?
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What’s the story?
Kemi Badenoch has defended a former neo-Nazi who was standing as a Conservative councillor in Somerset.
She says Joshua Bonehill-Paine has been "rehabilitated", having previously targeted a Jewish MP with anti-semitic abuse, and has convictions for assaulting a police officer, burglary and an anti-Islam hoax which led to death threats of a pub owner.
He has since stood down.
Badenoch said Bonehill-Paine's candidacy was appropriate because he was not standing for a "national platform", and compared him to first secretary of state Louise Haigh, who pleaded guilty to fraud charges over a wrongly reported theft of a mobile phone after a 2024 mugging.
He has previously described himself a “nationalist, fascist, theorist and supporter of white rights” among a list of other vile and offensive acts and comments.
"Kemi's argument, that rehabilitation is a really important part of public political life, would be a really strong one to make if his transgressions didn't go on and on and on," says Emily Maitlis.
"They are so deeply personal to people who are still around today and who are still calling out his actions today."
These include Luciana Berger, former MP and now member of the House of Lords, and Lord John Mann.
Maitlis adds that it was only recently that the Tories were calling out Angela Rayner for referring to the Conservatives as “scum”, a comment Boris Johnson, Prime Minister at the time, described as unpalatable.
"It was an awful thing to hear a senior Labour minister or potential minister using that word. Now you've got an actual convicted neo-Nazi who wants to stand under the party name," she says.
"What the f**k's going on?"
How badly has Kemi Badenoch judged this?
Kemi Badenoch is known for many political characteristics, but Lewis says that “nuance, subtlety, redemption, contrition” are not among them.
"That's not her thing," he says.
"Her thing is – as she herself says – is to be consistent and clear and hard edged. That's how she sees the strength of her politics."
Badenoch has severely misjudged the balance in this situation, and risks losing support from many more people by allowing Bonehill-Paine to stand.
"We definitely want a place in our society for rehabilitation, for contrition, for redemption, for forgiveness. We want those things," Lewis says.
"There is the right of that man to be redeemed, but that has to be balanced with the signal that it sends to the groups affected by this case, for example British Jews, who have reacted very negatively to this."
The Board of British Jews rejected a Tory offer to meet with Bonehill-Paine to hear about how he has changed his mind on previous, extreme anti-semitic comments.
It just gets worse...
Lewis says Kemi’s second justification for permitting Bonehill-Paine to stand before he stood down, saying it is OK because he is standing for local office, not national, is “genuinely risible”.
"The message that sends to local government, to Conservative councillors, is that it doesn't really matter if they are a former neo-Nazis because they're doing completely unimportant, trivial stuff," he says.
"In saying that she would not allow him to stand for national office, but she would for local office, she is therefore herself accepting that there is a threshold at which you do not allow someone to stand for certain political office."
And it's not just bad for Conservative councillors, it's really bad for voters too. Especially those in Somerset.
"If they want to vote for a Tory councillor, but aren't a big fan of neo-Nazis, they're stuck with a choice their own leader has imposed upon them," Maitlis says.
"If Badenoch is trying to recreate a Conservative party in the southwest of England this is not a great start to the comeback tour.
"It suggests that the Tories are really desperate for candidates if they're still arguing about this guy once they know everything about him."
Is Kemi Badenoch spending far too much time online?
There's nothing that spooks the right-wing more than the fear of cancel culture, and the press opportunities that come with cancellation, with newspaper columns, radio interviews and TV appearances regularly offered to those to suffer such a dreadful fate.
Lewis believes Kemi Badenoch has spent so much time entrenched in online debate about cancellation, that she is now pushing back too hard over the idea, and even refusing to 'cancel' neo-Nazis.
"I think some Conservatives, including Badenoch, have become so suspicious about the idea of cancellation, of cancel culture, and are so desperate to stick it to 'anti woke people’ or ‘the libs’ that they have become completely oblivious even to the most extreme cases," Lewis says.
"It's not about canceling this guy, but a matter of saying his history is just simply too extreme to allow to stand as a candidate."