A Reform UK candidate has disowned the party and is backing the Conservatives amid a row over racism.
Liam Booth-Isherwood, who was standing in the seat of Erewash, announced he was dropping out of the race and would instead be endorsing the Tory contender Maggie Throup to “stop Labour”.
He said he had become “increasingly disillusioned” with the behaviour of the party and accused leader Nigel Farage of not taking it seriously.
…
Pressed on why his party seems to attract people who hold extremist views, the former UKIP leader claimed it was because he had driven the British Nationalist Party (BNP) “out as an electoral force”.
“Ironically, destroying the BNP means people who are minded that way don’t any longer have a home to go to, and so some will gravitate in our direction,” he added.
Yes I wonder why that could be, Nigel.
Maybe because you say the kind of things the BNP liked to hear? Perhaps you should say something else.
It was by design. The problem is that when you get former BNP members, they say and do racist things. But who could have possibly foreseen that outcome?
Maybe we’ve had quite enough of Reform and them shits for one month, yeah? No need to fuel them even more.
If I wasn’t so lazy I’d take this pic and make a Gilliam-esque animation character suitable for a south park-style cartoon.
Every election has a new party to essentially do what the BNP does.
2010: BNP
2015: UKIP
2017: UKIP
2019: Brexit Party
2024: Reform UK
2029: Tea Party UK?
The far-right voter base moves between these, and each of these parties tries to paint themselves as something refreshing and new. Remember when Nick Griffin went on Question Time and said his Holocaust denial was “mainly just about the numbers”? They’ve learned a bit more about dogwhistling since then.
Simpsons-esque “Not a racist party but #1 amongst racists”
Inexplicably, they seem to be having a similar problem over in France: https://x.com/emma_frr/status/1807782203054506056
It couldn’t happen here!
Another one has just defected: Reform candidate defects to Tories over ‘racist, misogynistic and bigoted’ candidates
I don’t understand how these people didn’t know this going into the party?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Liam Booth-Isherwood, who was standing in the seat of Erewash, announced he was dropping out of the race and would instead be endorsing the Tory contender Maggie Throup to “stop Labour”.
It follows the controversy over a Reform canvasser who was caught making a racial slur about the prime minister in an undercover investigation.
Mr Farage has faced criticism from across the political divide for failing to tackle accusations of racism within Reform, which have engulfed the party in recent days.
Reform UK withdrew support on Saturday from three candidates over racist remarks, including one who allegedly said black people should “get off [their] lazy arses” and stop acting “like savages”.
Mr Hester, who has donated £15m to the Tory party, apologised for comments he made about Ms Abbott, but claimed they “had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.
Mr Sunak was criticised for the way he initially responded to the allegations about the major party donor, before eventually condemning the remarks as “racist”.
The original article contains 873 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I live in this constituency. Normally there’s a load of Vote Conservative stuff up in people’s windows. This time there’s nothing. A few swivel eyed loons in the local Facebook groups with Reform profile pics and that’s it.
This town is going red, and our useless Penfold-lookalike Tory MP will be out.
It was actually quite funny, the other day a van came around giving out vote labour signs, and it was like the adult version of an ice cream van. I’m glad there’s so much Labour support in my constituency but I’ve never seen it before. Normally there’s one or two vote labour signs quite a lot of vote conservative signs but a lot of people don’t put anything up.
This year it’s virtually all vote labour, or nothing, and very little nothing.
The greens really shot themselves in the foot around here because they opposed the building of a wind farm. What Green MP opposes Green energy?
They also have literal neo-nazi candidates who support fringe fascist groups like Homeland and the National Front.
