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Ex-MP urges Tories to drop candidate jailed for campaign of antisemitic abuse against her
Ben Quinn
A former MP has urged the Tory leader to drop an election candidate who was previously jailed for a campaign of antisemitic abuse against her.
Kemi Badenoch on Tuesday defended the Conservative party’s selection of Joshua Bonehill-Paine, a former neo-Nazi, insisting she believes in “second chances”.
Writing on social media, Luciana Berger, who is now a Labour member of the House of Lords, said: “For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t believe this man should have *any* role in public life – because of both his racism and his view of women.”
Directly addressing the Conservative leader in a thread of comments online, Berger said she was still “haunted” by the case and told Badenoch that she had “got this very, very wrong”.
“He was convicted for racial harassment for 5 specific blogs. But that wasn’t all – he’d published *reams* of deeply racist, misogynistic and pornographic material about me,” said Berger. She recalled being six months pregnant when she had to give evidence at the Old Bailey in what she described as “two days of hell”.
“I count myself lucky though. There were other victims whose lives he had totally destroyed,” she added. She said she felt sick reading commentators who were defending the selection.
Bonehill-Paine, the creator of the viral Crewkerne Gazette series of AI clips, is due to stand for election to Somerset council 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.
Burnham considering public inquiry into UK activities of Jeffrey Epstein
Aletha Adu
Andy Burnham is considering launching a public inquiry into the UK activities of the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a minister has said.
The victims’ minister, Alex Davies-Jones, said the prime minister had agreed to meet Epstein’s victims, was “looking into” an inquiry and was “taking this very seriously”. A separate inquiry into the alleged actions of the former Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed is also being considered.
Asked if a public inquiry was on the table, Davies-Jones told BBC Newsnight: “We are looking into this, we are reviewing what is possible … same with Harrods survivors.
“We already have a now statutory inquiry under way for the grooming gangs victims. I have been assured that the prime minister is taking this very seriously.
“He will meet with those victims and he is looking at what is possible, now he has access to all of the information as prime minister to see … what action we can take.”
More than 400 allegations of sexual abuse have been made against Fayed, from 1977 to 2014, including claims of rape, sexual assault, sexual exploitation and human trafficking.
The Metropolitan police are investigating allegations from at least 156 complainants including 21 who came forward before Fayed died in 2023.
Badenoch defends decision to allow former neo-Nazi to stand in local elections
Kemi Badenoch has defended the Conservative party’s decision to allow a former neo-Nazi to stand as a councillor, although she indicated he might not be allowed to become a candidate for parliament.
The Tory leader said Joshua Bonehill-Paine had been rehabilitated and now worked to tackle racism and antisemitism.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today:
I’m not giving him a national platform, he is standing to be a councillor in Somerset… it is a local platform looking at parking, sorting out bins. I have much higher thresholds for what it takes to be a Conservative MP.
She added:
I am extremely worried about antisemitism and what I feel is that if we can’t have the people who have previously been radicalised, who understand what went wrong and are part of the fight against antisemitism now, if we’re saying: ‘No, no, no, you’re untouchable,’ then how can we pretend that we believe in rehabilitation?
I’m someone who’s quite sceptical about rehabilitation and I see this man as somebody who has been rehabilitated.
Continuing his media round on the airwaves this morning, justice minister Jake Richards said he understood the “strength of feeling” among police about PC Andrew Harper’s death but that without prison places officers would not be able to do their jobs.
Richards said that Harper’s Law strengthens the sentence for perpetrators who commit such offences but that “it doesn’t work retrospectively”.
“I understand the strength of feeling from police officers generally, but of course within that force in particular after the awful incident with Pc Andrew Harper,” he told BBC Breakfast.
“If we do not have prison places available then the police, the good work that they do every day on the streets, finding perpetrators, locking them up, it would be impossible.”
Asked about those who remain eligible, Richards told BBC Breakfast:
The new regime comes into effect from October the first. The sentences, or the offences, sorry, which have been carved out, have been published online.
Manslaughter is not one of those offences, and it would be wrong to pick out individual cases within different offending cohorts. That wouldn’t be right. It wouldn’t be lawful either.
So it is correct that those two individuals will be subject to the new regime from October.
Justice minister Jake Richards said the government “cannot carve out every single offence people might want us to” amid claims a loophole means historical child sex abusers will still be eligible for early release from prison.
Asked about The Times reporting that the rules will not apply to child sex offences that took place before the law changed in 2003, Richards told Sky News:
Well, we’ve set out and published all the offences which have been now carved out of the new scheme that begins in October.
Those are all online, several pages. But what we have been very clear is that we cannot carve out every single offence that people might want us to do so.
We would like to do that, the prime minister has been very clear in his public pronouncements on this.
Meanwhile, Richards told BBC Breakfast that “previous early release schemes… were rushed”.
He added:
They weren’t thought through. There was no preparatory work at all done by the government because they were essentially running a system which was out of control, and that this is fundamentally different.
He said the new scheme would ensure every victim was contacted and invited to share what measures they want in place to “ensure that they can be kept safe”.
Thames Valley chief constable ‘considering’ joining Police Federation legal challenge
The Thames Valley chief constable has said he is “receiving legal advice” and would “certainly consider” joining the Police Federation’s legal action over the possible release of PC Andrew Harper’s killers.
Asked if he would join the case, Jason Hogg told the BBC’s Today programme on Wednesday:
This is something I certainly would consider. But like I said, I urge the government now.
I do think that the public opinion is overwhelming in this matter, but I think it’s unfair and I do believe confidence in the criminal justice system risks being damaged.
It’s right for the government to have a look at this matter.
He added that their possible release has had a “profound impact” on his force.
Minister defends early release of PC Andrew Harper’s killers amid possible legal challenge
Good morning and welcome to the UK politics blog.
Ministers continue to defend the release of PC Andrew Harper’s killers as part of the government’s early prisoner release scheme, despite a potential legal challenge from the Police Federation.
Justice minister Jake Richards acknowledged the “unimaginable pain” of the deceased officer’s family but said “difficult decisions” must be made because law and order could “collapse” without a functioning prison system.
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.
Asked to respond to Police Federation chief Aileen O’Connor’s threat of legal action, he told Sky News:
Well, look, we understand that people are angry. The Harper family are, of course, angry. The police are angry too.
We’re angry that we’re in this situation where we face the unenviable position of having to make sure that we have a sustainable prison system, which is so vital to a functioning law and order system in our country, but also that we do right by victims as far as possible.
And the prime minister has looked again at the scheme. He said he wants to do more than he has been able to do, and that we wanted to take further action to try and ease the unimaginable pain that the Harper family are feeling every day, but we also have to balance that by ensuring that we have a functioning prison system.
He added:
Because without a functioning prison system, it means it’s difficult for police to make arrests, it’s difficult for our courts to try cases, and it could mean to the collapse of law and order in this country.
We cannot be in that situation, so that is the challenge that we face as government ministers and the prime minister faces ultimately.
Richards’ defence of the policy came as a Police Federation chief told Times Radio she feels “sick to her stomach” over the possible early release of PC Harper’s killers.
Aileen O’Connor, chairwoman of Thames Valley Police Federation, previously wrote in The Sun newspaper that the organisation “will throw everything at this through a proper legal challenge from KCs, barristers, you name it.”
She added on Wednesday:
I feel sick to my stomach, if I’m really honest with you. I’ve had a gut wrenching feeling in my stomach the past couple of weeks with this, and it doesn’t go away.
And arguably, I would say that many of my members across Thames Valley also have this gut wrenching feeling, even at the prospect of these two killers being released in the space of weeks, potentially.
In other developments:
Ministers will scrap the requirement for companies to prove their green and progressive values before they are awarded government contracts, and instead ask firms to prove they will help young people back into work.
Women should not feel pressurised into experiencing an “ideal birth”, the new health secretary, Yvette Cooper, has said, promising a root-and-branch reform of standards after several damning maternity scandals.
An official investigation has been launched into charities in England and Wales donating funds to illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine.
Andy Burnham has inherited a Labour membership that is sceptical about increased welfare spending, supportive of higher defence spending, and ranks the climate crisis as one of the country’s biggest challenges, according to new polling.
BP’s chief executive has urged Andy Burnham to make use of the UK’s oil and gas resources even as the oil company prepares to sell its North Sea business after 60 years in the ageing basin.
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.
Pupils in Scotland’s schools received their exam results this morning, with exam pass rates at all levels having risen this year, including a record number of National 5 passes.
