Reform candidate who called Holocaust a 'hoax' wins seat in local election
The core election-related elements in the article are strongly supported by primary local-authority documentation: Sefton held local elections on Thursday 7 May 2026, Bootle West is a three-member ward, and a Reform UK candidate named Jay Leslie Cooper was validly nominated there.
Full analysis The complete summary ⌄
The core election-related elements in the article are strongly supported by primary local-authority documentation: Sefton held local elections on Thursday 7 May 2026, Bootle West is a three-member ward, and a Reform UK candidate named Jay Leslie Cooper was validly nominated there. However, direct primary verification of the reported vote tally (705) and the alleged Holocaust-denial wording is constrained because Sefton’s official results pages on modgov.sefton.gov.uk returned access errors (403/failed fetch) in this audit environment. Secondary reporting and aggregation sources repeat the same figures and quotes, but the most serious allegation (Holocaust denial) remains Unverified at primary-source level here (e.g., original social-media capture, official party statement, or a paywalled/archived Echo article accessible for corroboration). Overall: the piece appears broadly plausible on structure and context, but the highest-risk claim (the exact hateful quote) cannot be fully confirmed from primary evidence within the current constraints.
What checked out (3)
- Sefton held local elections on Thursday 7 May 2026.
- Bootle West Ward (Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council) had a poll scheduled for Thursday 7 May 2026 (07:00–22:00).
- Jay Leslie Cooper was a Reform UK candidate validly nominated for Bootle West Ward in the Sefton borough council election.
Unverified claims 8 claims ⌄
- Jay (Leslie) Cooper won one of three seats in Bootle West ward on Sefton Council in the 2026 local elections.
- Jay (Leslie) Cooper won with exactly 705 votes.
- Cooper wrote (or replied on Facebook) that the Holocaust was a hoax and ‘propaganda’, and that there were not 6 million Jews in Europe at the time (exact wording as reported).
- Nigel Farage said of Cooper: ‘he’s not welcome’ (exact wording and context as reported).
- Cooper made/reshared posts alleging ‘the 3 young girls in Southport’ were ‘slaughtered by the hands of Labour’ and claimed a link between Labour/the government and ‘the Southport attacks’.
- Cooper reposted an AI image of Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a hijab and wrote ‘They import votes… Import the 3rd world… Terror comes with it…’ (exact text as reported).
- Cooper shared a video in January 2024 suggesting the 9/11 attacks were not real (as characterised in the article).
- A September (year not fully specified in the article text, implied 2025) post referenced the ‘death’ of Charlie Kirk (this event-claim is not corroborated here and would require separate verification).
Sources & how we checked Search journal, source grades, confidence ⌄
Confidence
0.66 — Confidence is moderate: primary documentation verifies the candidate’s nomination and the election timing, supporting the article’s basic setup. However, the audit could not access the official results database pages needed to confirm the win/vote tally, and it did not obtain primary evidence for the alleged (and reportedly deleted) social-media quote or Farage’s exact remarks. Given these gaps, the most consequential claims remain Unverified, which reduces overall certainty while still permitting a moderately positive trust score for the parts that are directly supported.
Search journal
Metro May 8 2026 Reform candidate Holocaust hoax Jay Cooper Bootle West 705 votes
Jay Cooper Reform councillor Bootle West Sefton Council election results 2026
Bootle West ward 2026 705 Reform UK Cooper
Liverpool Echo Jay Leslie Cooper Bootle West Holocaust hoax 705 votes May 2026
Guide to Thursday’s local election for Sefton Council OTS News Jay Leslie Cooper Holocaust hoax