Two more Reform local election candidates accused of offensive posts | Reform UK
Labor said Reform England’s checks on candidates were “clearly not fit for purpose” after two more candidates in May’s local elections were accused of making offensive or potentially racist social media posts.
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that the Restore Britain party, founded by MP Rupert Lowe after leaving Reformation, accepted donations from someone who publicly called on social media for “another Hitler” to come to power.
Reformation has faced a series of controversies over some of its candidates in local elections in England on 7 May, as well as some of those standing in the Scottish and Welsh parliaments; but Nigel Farage said the party had greatly improved its vetting process.
Images of Facebook posts by Isle of Wight Reform candidate Alan Stay show him sharing racist and sexist messages; These include a message that repeatedly uses an explicitly racist epithet, claiming that it is not a harmful word. The post was made in response to a news story about a DJ losing his job for playing a record that featured the word.
Another candidate, Caroline Panetta, standing in the outer London borough of Bexley, retweeted anti-Islamic comments, including saying London mayor Sadiq Khan wanted to turn the city into a “London” where women would be unsafe.
In his own post, he claimed that Islam is “a religion of rape, incest and pedophilia.” Other retweets were about George Floyd, who was killed by a police officer on a Minneapolis street in 2020; declared Floyd guilty, saying his murder conviction was a miscarriage of justice.
Labor leader Anna Turley said: “What will it take for Nigel Farage to finally act? Farage has repeatedly boasted about Reform’s vetting procedures, but it is still clearly not fit for purpose. Farage must condemn these vile remarks, expel them as Reform candidates and expel them from his party without delay.”
Reform has been contacted for comment.
Lowe left Reform last year after a bitter row with Farage. His new party is openly far-right and is calling for millions of people to be deported from the UK. Latest polls show he has about 4% support nationwide.
The party has received support from openly racist and far-right activists, which Lowe refuses to disavow.
His supporters include an activist named Miles Routledge, who tweets under the name Lord Miles. In February he tweeted that he was a member of a group of Restore Britain donors called the Cromwell Club and posted a photo showing the £2,500 donation that achieved this.
Routledge has shown support for extreme views, and this week described another Restore supporter, X’s prolific far-right user Steve Laws, as a “liberal” who wants to deport millions of people from the UK, saying: “I have better solutions.”
“What gives me joy and hope in this world is that we have another Hitler to lead another great uprising by 2039,” he wrote in a post last July.
Asked by the Guardian whether he wanted to reveal the posts, Routledge replied: “That’s exactly what I said and meant, and I was probably holding back.”
“I must also add that when I gain even an iota of power, I will also imprison journalists like you.”
