Badenoch defends decision to allow man jailed for antisemitism to stand as councillor

Tory leader praises Joshua Bonehill-Paine’s ‘contrition’ but says she has higher thresholds for MP candidates Kemi Badenoch has defended her party’s decision to allow a former neo-Nazi who was jailed for subjecting a prominent Labour politician to antisemitic abuse to stand as a councillor. Badenoch has previously criticised Haigh the Commons, saying: “The country needs conviction politicians, not politicians with convictions.” Bonehill-Paine, the creator of the viral Crewkerne Gazette series of AI clips , is due to stand for election in a new Crewkerne South district next year. He told the Guardian on Monday that he was an executive member of the Tories’ Yeovil branch, working as an events organiser, and has carried out counter-extremism work since he was released from prison. Bonehill-Paine also has a conviction for assaulting a police officer and burglary of a police station, and was convicted in 2014 of malicious communications over an anti-Islam hoax that led to death threats against the owners of a pub in Leicester.

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