A former Conservative local election candidate has been suspended from the party after Al Jazeera broadcast secretly filmed footage in which he appeared to set out the violent services a Glasgow man could provide for money, the Guardian reported on Wednesday evening.
Jack Ross, chief executive of the right-wing campaign group Turning Point UK, was filmed by an undercover reporter for the Al Jazeera Investigative Unit documentary Contract Killers and the Far Right. The Guardian also reported that Police Scotland will review and assess the documentary for any criminality.
Ross has denied Al Jazeera's findings "completely" and, according to the broadcaster, said that nothing he told its undercover reporter was meant seriously.
The allegations put a figure with links to senior Conservatives at the centre of a documentary that Police Scotland is assessing for criminality. Ross stood for the party at the May 2023 local elections, and the Guardian said he has been photographed with Boris Johnson, James Cleverly, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Liam Fox. The Bow Group, a Conservative think tank, lists him as a research fellow.
In the footage, Ross appeared to ask the Al Jazeera journalist "What do you want done?" before listing what could be arranged, according to the Guardian's account of the film.
"They can just kick the fuck out of someone. That's a certain amount. They can start cutting people's faces up, that's another amount. And they can stab someone. They can shoot someone. They can kill someone."
The Guardian said Ross appeared to be describing the services of Allan Nesbitt, a Glasgow man whom Al Jazeera alleges has links to the Ulster Volunteer Force and multiple criminal convictions, including two for violent knife attacks. Al Jazeera says Ross introduced its reporter to Nesbitt, and that it has passed information about Nesbitt and his weapons to police in Scotland.
Al Jazeera says its investigation began in 2021, when an undercover reporter joined Turning Point UK. The broadcaster also says Ross was filmed agreeing to pay Nesbitt thousands of pounds to stage a fake rally in support of lifting UK sanctions on Zimbabwe. No sum has been published.
There is no suggestion in the documentary that any attack was carried out, and nobody has been charged.
Ciaran O'Connor, a senior analyst who spoke to Al Jazeera, said the people Ross was dealing with were "obviously a lot more physically tough than Turning Point UK". Roy McComb, a former deputy director of the National Crime Agency, told the broadcaster that loyalist links between Scotland and Northern Ireland were long-standing and that firearms and activists had moved between the two in the past.
Turning Point UK describes itself as an independent offshoot of the American group Turning Point USA. Al Jazeera says it has close ties to several senior Conservatives and to figures in Reform UK. Its chief operating officer, Nick Tenconi, is the leader of UKIP; the Guardian said Tenconi attended the 2022 Conservative conference with Ross. No allegation has been made against Tenconi.
Ross stood unsuccessfully for the Conservatives in the Horndean Murray ward in Hampshire in May 2023, according to Novara Media, which investigated Turning Point UK in 2024.
The Guardian said it approached Ross for comment through Turning Point UK. Al Jazeera said other parties named in its investigation did not respond.
A Conservative Party spokesperson said Ross's membership had been suspended with immediate effect pending an investigation, and Police Scotland has not said whether its assessment of the documentary will become a formal investigation.
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