By Alistair Smout
LONDON, Aug 5 (Reuters) - A former neo-Nazi jailed for hate crimes withdrew on Wednesday as a local election candidate for Britain’s Conservative Party, saying he needed to do more to convince the Jewish community of his commitment to fighting antisemitism.
Joshua Bonehill-Paine was convicted in 2015 of racially aggravated harassment of Luciana Berger, then a Labour lawmaker, and had also been jailed for stirring up hatred against a north London Jewish community.
His selection as a candidate for an election to Somerset council in south-west England had drawn condemnation from Berger, other political parties and Jewish groups. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch had rejected that criticism.
Bonehill-Paine said he had stood for the council to demonstrate he had changed, but had realised that “the fight against antisemitism is something that I actually need to do more of.”
“I need to show the Jewish community how much I regret my previous actions and how hard I will work to fight to help destroy antisemitism and rebuild trust,” he wrote on X.
Badenoch said she was “sad” Bonehill-Paine would no longer be a Conservative candidate but said she would still work with him on tackling radicalisation.
Antisemitism has been on the rise in Britain for years and many parties have had to drop candidates or expel politicians.
A Welsh parliament candidate for the right-wing populist Reform UK quit after being photographed appearing to make a Nazi salute, while the Green Party suspended several candidates accused of antisemitism ahead of local elections in May.
The governing Labour Party was found by the equalities watchdog to have failed in its handling of antisemitism complaints while in opposition. The watchdog said in 2023 that it had taken sufficient steps to tackle the problem.
(Reporting by Alistair Smout, Muvija M and Michael Holden; Editing by Alex Richardson and Ros Russell)
