The Tory candidate who went from neo-Nazi to anti-extremism campaigner

When Kemi Badenoch was elected Conservative leader in November 2024, the Board of Deputies, the largest Jewish organisation in Britain, praised her as a “longstanding friend and ally” of the Jewish community. That friendship is now under considerable strain after the Tories had selected a former neo-Nazi to stand as a councillor in Somerset. Joshua Bonehill-Paine was jailed for three years in 2015 after posting “vile” anti-Semitic comments promoting an “anti-Jewification” march in Golders Green. He received a further two-year sentence for a targeted campaign against Baroness Berger, then the Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree. He described the peer as a “Jewess” and a “filthy Jew b----” while also doctoring photos of her face onto “sexualised images”. On Tuesday, Lady Berger said that his selection had hit her “like a punch in the stomach” and was “very, very wrong”.