Kemi Badenoch defends selection of man jailed for harassing Jewish MP in council election – as it happened

The Conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch, has defended the selection of a former neo-Nazi activist as a candidate for a local election in Somerset despite him being jailed in 2016 after he was convicted of racially aggravated harassment of the former Labour MP Luciana Berger. Badenoch said her party “believes in second chances” after the Conservatives selected Joshua Bonehill-Paine to stand in the new Somerset council seat of Crewkerne South in 2027. About 1,000 fewer prisoners will be released early after Andy Burnham’s intervention to exclude those convicted of rape, serious child sexual offences and grooming from the scheme. But domestic abusers and killers will still be eligible to go free, including two men jailed for their role in the death of PC Andrew Harper. PC Harper’s mother, Debbie Adlam, said her family are “bitterly disappointed” that her son’s killers remain eligible for early release while his widow, Lissie Harper, called it “an affront to justice” and “an utter bet.

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