A convicted former neo-Nazi activist has been selected as the Conservative candidate for a Somerset Council seat, and Kemi Badenoch has publicly defended the decision, prompting the Board of Deputies of British Jews to call on her party to rescind the selection.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, 33, who was jailed in 2015 for posting antisemitic material online ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally and again in 2016 for the racially aggravated harassment of the then Labour MP Luciana Berger, has been chosen to contest the new Crewkerne South division at the Somerset Council elections in May 2027. The Conservative leader said on Tuesday that her party "believes in second chances" and that Bonehill-Paine had "shown contrition for his crimes" and "been rehabilitated".

The selection places the Conservative Party's candidate vetting procedures under immediate scrutiny at a moment when Badenoch is already facing criticism over the exclusion of centrist figures from her candidate lists. The story was broken by the Guardian on Monday and has since drawn condemnation from the government's independent adviser on antisemitism, the Jewish Labour Movement, Labour and Reform UK.

Bonehill-Paine, who lives in the Yeovil area and sits as an executive member of the Conservatives' Yeovil branch, is also the figure behind the Crewkerne Gazette, a YouTube channel launched in March 2025 that publishes AI-generated political satire under the pseudonym "Crewkerne Man". He told the Guardian that "the branch and indeed party are fully aware of my past".

He has a series of convictions dating back more than a decade. In 2014 he was convicted of malicious communications over an anti-Islam hoax, published on his blog The Daily Bale, that led to death threats against the owners of a Leicester pub. In 2015 he was jailed for more than three years for inciting racial hatred after posting what prosecutors described as "vile" antisemitic material before a planned neo-Nazi rally. In December 2016, at the Old Bailey, he was sentenced to three years and four months for the racially aggravated harassment of Berger, now Baroness Berger, having denied the charge.

That case concerned five blog articles targeting Berger, one headlined "Racist Anti-White Jewish Labour MP Luciana Berger Exposed" and illustrated with her face superimposed on a rat. Another described her as "an evil money-grabber" and suggested that the number of Jewish Labour MPs was a "problem". He began the campaign in October 2014 after the jailing of the far-right activist Garron Helm, who had admitted sending a picture of Berger bearing a Holocaust-era Star of David alongside the hashtag "Hitler was right".

Giving evidence at the trial, Berger said she "felt sick" and felt "very much under attack", and that the campaign had resulted in "police patrolling outside my home and office". She has not commented publicly on the selection.

Bonehill-Paine previously described himself as a white nationalist, a fascist and a "proud antisemite", and founded the far-right group National British Resistance. He now says those views were "indefensible" and that he changed his position after learning, while in prison, of the murder of the MP Jo Cox, saying he "started to question why it was that I was supporting a right-wing ideology". Reports that he burgled a police station in Chard in 2011 using his Conservative Party membership card have not been independently verified.

He says his convictions are spent, that he holds Home Office counter-extremism certifications, and that since his release in May 2018 he has delivered counter-extremism seminars to schools, universities and police forces, challenging antisemitic conspiracy theories. On X he described himself as "a dedicated campaigner against antisemitism" with eight years' experience in the field, arguing that his past gives him "a unique ability to expose antisemitism". He has dismissed the coverage as "a total hit piece".

Badenoch echoed that account. "I want to be very clear, and I think people can look at me and know that I'm not a person who would be recruiting neo-Nazis," she said, adding that he had been certified by the Home Office to train police officers on antisemitism and countering extremism, and that "this is somebody who is actively working to help communities, especially Jewish communities".

The Board of Deputies rejected that defence. Its vice-president, Karen Newman, said: "It beggars belief that any party would select as a candidate a multiply convicted felon and the founder of a far-right group called National British Resistance." The organisation said it had written to the Conservative Party asking it to rescind the selection and to review its vetting processes.

Lord John Mann, the government's independent adviser on antisemitism, said: "This convicted criminal should have no platform from a Parliamentary Party. His antisemitism is as extreme as anyone I have ever seen." The Jewish Labour Movement called the selection "truly appalling".

A Labour spokesperson accused Badenoch of selecting a former neo-Nazi "while boasting about kicking out moderate Tories who back net zero", saying the Conservatives were "becoming more extreme and more out of touch with Britain". A Reform UK spokesperson said: "Kemi claims to support the fight against antisemitism yet selects a convicted antisemite Nazi as a candidate. The hypocrisy is breathtaking." Nigel Farage asked on X whether the selection was "part of the 'new generation' of Conservative candidates" Badenoch had promised. The Liberal Democrat MP for Yeovil, Adam Dance, whose constituency includes Crewkerne, has also responded.

Bonehill-Paine used Reform's intervention against the party, writing as "Crewkerne Man" that he had "foolishly applied to become a Reform councillor and even passed vetting and security" in November 2025 before choosing the Conservatives instead. "Last year Reform were more than happy to have me, I didn't want them though," he wrote. Reform UK has not confirmed whether he cleared national vetting.

His profile has grown sharply over the past 18 months. Channel 4 News identified him as the figure behind the Crewkerne Gazette in February 2026, reporting that he had sought to conceal his identity and criminal record while building a channel with more than 100 million views; he apologised for his past antisemitism hours after being approached. One video about the then deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner, made during a tax controversy, was viewed more than 11 million times and featured on the front page of the Sun. He has said online that it "may even have contributed to her resignation". The channel has been critical of Labour and Reform UK while portraying Badenoch favourably. The Conservative chief whip, Rebecca Harris, was criticised earlier this year for reposting one of its videos after his identity had been revealed. In a Times interview this year he said his politics "oscillated between the Conservatives and Reform" and that he had received a Christmas card from Badenoch.

The row lands amid wider unrest in the party. Prospective Conservative parliamentary candidates must now align with Badenoch's pledges to scrap the 2050 net zero target and leave the European Convention on Human Rights; the former minister Grant Shapps, who is Jewish, was rejected as a candidate last week; and the young activist Cody Butler resigned at the weekend as chair of the One Nation Conservative Network, saying he no longer believed the party had a home for one nation conservatism.

Crewkerne South is one of 90 single-member divisions created by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, whose final recommendations for Somerset were published on 3 March 2026 and reduce the unitary authority from 110 to 96 councillors across 90 single-member and three two-member divisions. The changes take effect once approved by Parliament, in time for the May 2027 poll. Crewkerne, a town of 7,333 people nine miles south-west of Yeovil, sits in a Liberal Democrat stronghold: Dance won the Yeovil constituency in 2024 with a majority of 12,268 over the Conservatives, with Reform UK third.

Conservative campaign headquarters has not issued a statement beyond Badenoch's broadcast remarks, and has not said whether the selection was approved nationally or locally. The Home Office has not commented on whether it certifies individuals to train police officers in counter-extremism.

Bonehill-Paine's surname appears as "Bonehill-Payne" in some court and agency reporting.