Mixed (partly Verified; key elements Unverified due to access limits)
Confidence: 0.66
StandardThe 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.
Verified Claims
Unverified Claims
Detected Biases:
Language Patterns
Emotional manipulation: 0.34
Level: 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.
Query: Metro May 8 2026 Reform candidate Holocaust hoax Jay Cooper Bootle West 705 votes
Located Sefton elections hub page linking to results and nomination PDFs; confirms election timetable and ward structure context.
Query: Jay Cooper Reform councillor Bootle West Sefton Council election results 2026
Sefton results landing page references a modgov results database; direct modgov result pages later failed to open due to access restrictions.
Query: Bootle West ward 2026 705 Reform UK Cooper
Primary nomination document confirms Jay Leslie Cooper stood as Reform UK candidate in Bootle West; includes poll date/time.
Query: Liverpool Echo Jay Leslie Cooper Bootle West Holocaust hoax 705 votes May 2026
Reddit post quotes and links to Liverpool Echo; used only as a lead, not as standalone verification of quotes/results.
Query: Guide to Thursday’s local election for Sefton Council OTS News Jay Leslie Cooper Holocaust hoax
Search surfaced an OTS News page naming Jay Leslie Cooper and repeating the allegation; not opened in this run (but retained in source assessment as secondary URL from search results).
# Reform candidate who called Holocaust a 'hoax' wins seat in local election | News UK | Metro News
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# Reform candidate who called Holocaust a ‘hoax’ wins seat in local election
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**[Noora Mykkanen](
**Published** May 8, 2026 8:38pm **Updated** May 8, 2026 8:38pm
[](whatsapp://send?text=Reform%20candidate%20who%20called%20Holocaust%20a%20%27hoax%27%20wins%20seat%20in%20local%20election%20https%3A%2F%2Fmetro.co.uk%2F2026%2F05%2F08%2Freform-candidate-called-holocaust-a-hoax-wins-seat-local-election-28291986%2F%3Fito%3Darticle.desktop.share.top.whatsapp)[]( is copied[](
A newly elected Reform councillor’s inflammatory and conspiracy theory-fuelled social media posts have come under scrutiny (Picture: Getty Images)
A Reform UK candidate who allegedly said the Holocaust was a hoax has won a seat in the local elections.
Jay Cooper, who won one of three seats in the Sefton Council for the Bootle West ward, has been accused of spewing out conspiracy theories and labelling the genocide of millions of Jewish people ‘propaganda.’
The earlier [social media]( comments made by the newly elected councillor from [Merseyside]( Reform have come under scrutiny following his win with 705 votes.
In a since-deleted [Facebook]( post made last September, Cooper referred to the death of [US]( right-wing activist [Charlie Kirk]( with caption ‘Heartbreaking. Murdered for having an [opinion]( the [Liverpool Echo]( reported.
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Nigel Farage was quizzed about the newly elected Reform UK councillor’s questionable social media comment about the Holocaust (Picture: AFP/Getty Images)
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A comment made by another user said that [Adolf Hitler]( had an opinion and asked ‘did he deserve to die?’
Coope responded: ‘I don’t agree with him murdering innocent people. But the Hallocaust [sic] is a hoax.
‘There wasn’t [sic] even 6 million Jews in Europe at the time. Propaganda.’
He has made a series of other conspiracy theory-fuelled comments online since, including claiming a link between the Labour government and the Southport attacks.
A post made in February, which is still online, said along with a link to a poll: ‘These polls have got to be wrong about Liverpool how are people in the right mind still thinking it’s acceptable to vote for Labour.
‘The 3 young girls in Southport slaughtered by the hands of Labour should have been the turning point. Makes me ashamed to be from Liverpool.’
In March, he reposted an AI image from a local page depicting Prime Minister Keir Starmer in a hijab with text with it: ‘Labour have given up winning elections with policies. They focus on demographics instead.
They import votes because the public hate their policies. Import the 3rd world and bribe them with taxpayer benefits.Terror comes with it and they don’t care.’
In January 2024 he shared a video suggesting that the 9/11 terror attacks in the US were not real.
The video repost, which is still up on Cooper’s profile, said: ‘Ultimate proof. 9/11 is not what we thought it was.’
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[UK]( hours ago By [**Sophie-May Williams**]( 2. [TV star has mansion raided in rape and human trafficking probe]( 3. [Man arrested after 'shouting shame Hitler didn't kill you' on London bus]( 4. [Mum died in front of daughter after head got stuck in rocks when tide was coming in](
Reform’s leader Nigel Farage hinted that the newly elected councillor would not be welcome in the party.
Farage told the [Echo]( ‘When you are putting up 5,000 people, do some slip through the net because they don’t tell you their social media handles or tell you the truth? Yes. Do we welcome people with these ideas? No, we absolutely don’t.’
When told that Cooper was now elected, he said he ‘could not speak to that’ before adding ‘But I tell you what, he’s not welcome.’
Metro approached Cooper and Reform UK for a comment.
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