Reform UK local election candidate was twice disciplined by Tories over ‘racist comments’ | Reform UK
A Reform UK candidate for next month’s council elections has twice been disciplined by the Conservatives for allegedly offensive or racist comments, while another shared conspiracy theory about Covid has emerged as the full list of candidates has been confirmed.
More than 5,000 council places will be contested across England on May 7, with several mayoral and Scottish and Welsh parliamentary elections set to be a major test for all major parties.
Councils began publishing lists of approved candidates on Friday, after nominations closed at 4pm on Thursday. Reform says there are as many candidates as Labor in just over 95 per cent of the seats. Reform England leader Nigel Farage said the party’s vetting procedures had been strengthened.
One of the Bolton council candidates is former Conservative Derek Bullock, who was sacked by the party over allegations he posted a racist comment about people of Pakistani descent on Facebook. Bullock said the screenshots showing the comment were fake.
Bullock was a Tory candidate for the council in 2023 when images emerged of a post sent during the 2017 Manchester Arena terror attack in which he allegedly used a racial slur to call for people of Pakistani origin to be shot.
The Conservatives rejected his candidacy and Bullock won as an independent. Previously, in 2020, Bullock faced internal disciplinary action by the Conservatives for allegedly publishing an anti-Islam article on Facebook.
A Reform spokesman said: “Mr Bullock has always strongly maintained that this image is fake and has reported this resurfaced material to the police. Mr Bullock is a valued member of his community and currently serves on the board of trustees of the Asian Seniors Resource Center in Bolton.”
Reform also said Sunderland council candidates include Glenda Hall, who posted a video on her Facebook page laying out Covid conspiracy theories and proposed a blog post describing Afghan men as “sexual predators”.
In 2020, Hall shared what he called an “interesting video” from a famous conspiracy theorist named Vernon Coleman about whether Covid was the “hoax of the century.” He described the epidemic as “the greatest fraud in human history” and said it was an exaggerated fear created by “Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Bilderbergians and Jesuits”.
Last year, he proposed a Substack post about what he called “the secret migration of Afghans to the UK.”
The post calls Afghan men “sexual predators” and suggests that stories about the killing of Afghan men by western soldiers may be “wishful thinking motivated by disgust with the sexual behavior of Afghan men.”
He added: “Personally, I hope they’re true.”
Reformation has been contacted for comment regarding Hall. Labor leader Anna Turley described the comments as “utterly deplorable”.
“Nigel Farage has repeatedly boasted about Reform’s vetting procedures,” he said. “Once again his party is insulting voters by featuring people who are completely unfit for public office. Farage needs to urgently condemn these vile remarks and remove them as Reform candidates.”
The reform is predicted to deliver gains in some councils as well as in Scotland and Wales. While Labor and the Conservatives are expected to suffer heavy losses, the Greens hope to gain seats in England and Wales polls led by Zack Polanski, the party’s leader since September.
On Friday evening, the Greens said they had candidates in 89% of English local council seats, a much higher rate than in previous elections. The previous highest rate was 72%, set last year.
Earlier in the week, the Greens took seats on Reform City Council, described as Reform’s “flagship” administration, following a by-election that resulted in the incumbent Reform councilor being jailed for controlling or oppressive behavior towards his wife.
