A former neo-Nazi activist convicted of racially aggravated harassment of the then Labour MP Luciana Berger has withdrawn as a Conservative candidate for Somerset Council, ending a two-day political storm during which the party leader, Kemi Badenoch, repeatedly defended his selection.

Joshua Bonehill-Paine, 33, stood down as the Conservative candidate for the new Crewkerne South division on Wednesday afternoon, roughly 48 hours after he announced the selection himself on social media. The BBC reported the withdrawal shortly before 4pm.

The reversal came only hours after Badenoch had again defended the decision in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, arguing that Bonehill-Paine had been rehabilitated and that the Conservative Party "believes in second chances". It also followed a formal refusal by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish Leadership Council to accept a party-brokered invitation to meet him.

The sequence of events leaves unresolved questions for the Conservative leadership over how a candidate with multiple convictions for racially aggravated and antisemitic offences was approved in the first place, and whether Badenoch's public defence of the selection is now sustainable. It is not yet clear whether Bonehill-Paine withdrew of his own accord or under pressure from Conservative Campaign Headquarters; the full text of his withdrawal statement had not been published at the time of writing.

Bonehill-Paine was jailed for three years and four months at Southwark Crown Court in December 2015 for inciting racial hatred, after posting what the court heard was "vile, anti-Semitic material" online ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally in Golders Green, north London, which he had described as an "anti-Jewification event".

He was returned to prison in December 2016 with an additional two-year sentence — described at the time by the Campaign Against Antisemitism as the maximum available — after being found guilty of the racially aggravated harassment of Berger, then MP for Liverpool Wavertree. The case at the Old Bailey concerned five blog posts, in which he called her a "rodent" and an "evil money-grabber" and claimed she had a "deep-rooted hatred of men".

Prosecutor Philip Stott told the court Bonehill-Paine began targeting Berger after a man was jailed for four weeks in October 2014 for tweeting an offensive picture of her. Giving evidence, Berger said the abuse had been "all-consuming" and left her feeling "very much under attack", telling the court: "The police were in constant contact with me. They were in my office and home."

He also has convictions dating from 2011 for burglary, assault and criminal damage, and admitted malicious communications charges in 2014 over an anti-Islam hoax that led to death threats against the owners of a pub in Leicester.

Born in Yeovil, Bonehill-Paine ran a blog called The Daily Bale in 2015 which published racist hoaxes and false accusations, and at the time described himself as "a proud anti-semite" and as a "nationalist, fascist, theorist and supporter of white rights". The Board of Deputies has described him as the founder of a far-right group called British National Resistance.

He says he abandoned those views in custody, completing the Home Office-accredited Healthy Identity Intervention Programme and the government's Prevent deradicalisation programme, and has delivered counter-extremism lectures since his release in May 2018. He has said the turning point was learning of the murder of the MP Jo Cox while he was in prison. "I felt an enormous sense of emotion — of grief and of anger that this lady had been murdered by a far-right extremist," he said, adding that it made him question why he had supported a right-wing ideology.

In a statement issued during the row, he said: "Eight years ago, I made the decision to confront and combat antisemitism… I felt enormous grief and shame over the way I had treated Jewish people in this country. What I did was utterly indefensible and there can be no excuses for it."

Bonehill-Paine has a substantial online following through The Crewkerne Gazette, a YouTube channel he launched in March 2025 publishing AI-generated satirical videos featuring figures including Nigel Farage, Badenoch, the shadow home secretary Chris Philp and the Prime Minister, Andy Burnham. Channel 4 News identified him as the man behind the account in February. The channel has more than 40,000 subscribers on YouTube, more than 18 million views and over 40,000 followers on X.

Announcing his selection on Monday, he said he was "tremendously proud", that he had "put our town on the map" and that it was "time to put Crewkerne first at County Hall". He told the Guardian he was an executive member of the Conservatives' Yeovil branch, working as an events organiser, and said his convictions were spent. The Conservative Party did not comment when first approached by the BBC.

Badenoch defended the selection at a press event in Surrey on Tuesday and again on Wednesday morning. "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 Bonehill-Paine had "been certified by the Home Office to train police officers on antisemitism and on countering extremism".

She described his past conduct as "appalling and abhorrent" and said he should not have a "national platform", but argued that a council role was different because councillors dealt with matters such as "parking and putting out bins". She said a higher threshold applied to Conservative parliamentary candidates, called the decision "a judgment call" about a man who "has served his sentence", and drew a distinction between rehabilitation and forgiveness.

"What Luciana is talking about is not rehabilitation, but forgiveness. I can understand that she might not want to forgive this man." — Kemi Badenoch

Berger, now a Labour peer, said she remained "haunted" by the case and told Badenoch she had "got this very, very wrong".

"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," she said. She told the BBC there was a "massive distinction" between educating others and "making the leap to standing for public office", adding: "This is not just one-off 'hurty words'. This is a man that engaged and indulged in a sustained campaign, not just against me, but many others."

The Board of Deputies had called on Tuesday for the selection to be rescinded and the party's vetting reviewed. 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 British National Resistance".

In a joint statement on Wednesday, the Board and the Jewish Leadership Council declined to meet Bonehill-Paine, citing what they said were ongoing legal restrictions arising from the severity of his offences — a claim that sits awkwardly with his position that his convictions are spent. While they believed in the possibility of rehabilitation, they said, "this should not in this case entail selection as a candidate for a political party". They agreed instead to meet the party to discuss its decision-making processes.

A Labour spokesperson said: "Kemi Badenoch is selecting a former neo-Nazi who was convicted for harassing a Jewish MP, while boasting about kicking out moderate Tories who back net zero." The Jewish Labour Movement called the choice "truly appalling".

Farage asked whether Bonehill-Paine was "part of the 'new generation' of Conservative candidates Kemi Badenoch is promising". ConservativeHome noted that Reform UK had previously invited him to stand — a claim Bonehill-Paine himself made using his "Crewkerne Man" account, writing: "It's telling that those most angered by my selection as a local Conservative candidate are Reform."

Criticism also came from within Conservative circles. ConservativeHome argued that the vetting process mattered more than the individual case, because "somebody within the party sat down, opened up his folder, looked over the record and ticked the box — believing that it presented no difficulty", and said Badenoch "should do the right thing and prevent him from standing".

Badenoch used the row to attack the government's early prison release policy and pointed to Labour's selection of a former Nazi at a local election in 2012.

Somerset goes to the polls on 6 May 2027 to elect 96 councillors for a four-year term, the first contest under new boundaries. The existing Crewkerne division is being replaced by Crewkerne North and Merriott, and Crewkerne South, which includes the railway station and villages near the Dorset border. The council is currently Liberal Democrat-led; in announcing his candidacy, Bonehill-Paine accused the Liberal Democrats of having "let us down very badly". Full candidate lists are expected by early April 2027.

The Conservative Party had not confirmed who would replace him in Crewkerne South, nor whether a review of its vetting procedures would take place.