Reform’s roll-call of unsavoury rogues
‘Remember when David Icke was mocked? We’re not laughing now’
THE party’s surge in the polls has led to panic in Downing Street, and talk about a return to frontline politics for Nigel Farage.
But a Mail on Sunday investigation into the candidates selected to stand at the next election for Reform UK – the successor to Mr Farage’s Brexit Party – has revealed that the potential MPs include a convicted animal abuser and a fortune-teller who sold spells for £200 on the pornography-dominated site OnlyFans.
Other candidates have also shared anti-Semitic, far-Right, racist and sexist material and spread Covid misinformation.
Some polls have put Reform UK, which is led by Richard Tice, just four per cent behind the Conservatives, which if replicated in a general election would split the Tory vote and contribute to a landslide for Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour. Prime
Minister Rishi Sunak has said that ‘a vote for Reform is a vote for Labour’, but the warning has not dented the party’s polling rise.
Last night, Tory MP Jonathan Gullis said: ‘Reform says its candidates have been vetted and given that all of this information was in the public domain, we can only assume this cast of characters passed Mr Tice’s muster. We are clearly not just talking about a “few rotten eggs” here. If you are promoting candidates banned from looking after dogs, how can you honestly say they are capable of looking after the interests of their constituents?’
The Reform UK candidates – who have to pay a vetting fee of £25 when they apply to stand – include Garry Sutherland, standing in the Exmouth and Exeter East constituency, who was found guilty in June last year of causing unnecessary suffering to a dog by kicking it in a Dorset country lane.
Sutherland was banned from owning a dog for two years and told to pay £1,964 in compensation after Weymouth Magistrates’ Court heard he had kicked the animal in the Dorset village of Chideock, contrary to the Animal Welfare Act. He began his campaign in the seat shortly after his sentencing.
The investigation found that Sutherland also promoted antiSemitic theories, endorsing a video from conspiracy theorist David Icke in which he said: ‘Zionism is not about Jewish people. It is a political system, at its core it is a secret society putting its agents in places of power.’
In a retweet of this video, Sutherland said about Icke: ‘Remember when they used to mock him? We’re not laughing now.’
In another post, he used a homophobic slur in an apparent reference to Phillip Schofield and shared a number of posts in support of Tommy Robinson, the farRight founder of the English Defence League, stating on another occasion that ‘what he says chimes with me’.
Amelia Randall, standing in Herne Bay and Sandwich, is a selfproclaimed psychic fortune teller who sold tarot card readings on the website OnlyFans, which predominantly makes its money from selling boutique pornography.
Ms Randall sold spells for up to £200 on Facebook in 2019 while offering ‘mystic psychic readings’ for £14.99 on her now-deleted OnlyFans page. On top of ‘candle magic’, ‘numerology forecasts’ and ‘angel harmony readings’, the medium claims on her website to have been ‘part of an international psychic line for years’.
Other Reform UK candidates have expressed extreme political views. Like Sutherland, Yvette Maxwell-Darkes, the candidate for Swindon North, has expressed support for Robinson, arguing that the convicted criminal ‘has very good things to say’ and that ‘I actually like him – he stands up and says things that most people think.’
She has also likened Sadiq Khan, Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock to Adolf Hitler in separate posts about Covid vaccines and lockdown measures.
Jacqui Harris, who is standing for the party in Kenilworth and Southam, was suspended as a Tory councillor in 2019 over comments on Twitter in which she suggested that the anti-Semitism row within the Labour Party could be part of an Israeli conspiracy, saying it was ‘spot on’ that ‘the whole anti-Semitism thing is a
false flag, probably masterminded by Mossad/CIA’.
Richard Brown, the Harrogate and Knaresborough candidate, has made misogynistic remarks about Labour MP Jess Phillips, calling her a ‘bitch’ in 2022.
Last year, Brown also shared the false claim that doctors refused to treat Boris Johnson on the basis that he didn’t have Covid, and claimed the pandemic was an ‘illusion’ that had been ‘planned’ by the Government ‘since 2016’.
Mark Hoath, representing Sutton Coldfield for Reform UK, has also shared claims that there was ‘no pandemic’. North Durham’s Andrew Husband has shared multiple posts suggesting that the Covid vaccine was the ‘greatest crime against humanity’ and Edward Oakenfull, running for the Derbyshire Dales seat, has branded disabled asylum seekers ‘disabled scroungers’ who ‘should go back to wherever they came from’. Oakenfull has also claimed that ‘importing loads of sub-Saharan Africans plus Muslims that inter-breed’ had created a ‘gene pool decline’.
The party was forced to sack three candidates in the space of 24 hours earlier this month over their activity on social media.
Ginny Heathcote Ball was abandoned as the party’s choice for Rutland and Stamford after she called for British activist Femi Oluwole to be deported, and that British radio presenter Nihal Arthanayake, who has Sri Lankan heritage, should ‘emigrate to a black-only country’. Last year she called Angela Rayner a ‘slut’ and in 2022 used the hashtag ‘AcidAttack’ directly after calling for ‘a purge of the scum in the Labour Party’. Ms Heathcote Ball has also described herself as a ‘far-Right hooligan and proud of it’.
Yorkshire businessman Roger Hoe was ditched as Reform’s candidate for Beverley and Holderness after he praised Robinson, shared links to Covid misinformation and attacked ‘coloured illegals’ and ‘the Islams’, while Benjamin ‘Beau’ Dade, who was standing for Swindon South, was dropped amid claims he wanted to deport ‘millions of foreigners and their dependents’, calling them a ‘cancer’ and a ‘plague’. And in February, Reform UK sacked its candidate for Henley and Thame over ‘inappropriate’ social media posts. David Carpin compared transgender and non-binary people to Adolf Hitler and called gay pride a ‘sin’.
The party has also deselected its candidate for Milton Keynes Central, Ray Brady, over what Labour described as a ‘misleading’ and ‘dangerous’ video he shared concerning asylum seekers.
Last night a Reform spokesman said: ‘Reform UK’s candidates are real people living real lives, like millions of Mail on Sunday readers. Like all parties, Reform UK has had a small number of candidates who have said or written something unacceptable.
‘We are proud that, when made aware of unacceptable behaviour, we act, and if necessary immediately remove candidates that have gone beyond the pale. Again, this is not something you will often see from our political opponents.
‘Garry Sutherland was defending his children and his own pet from a vicious attack by another dog. He accepted the court’s decision. He has also apologised and deleted his endorsement of an inappropriate video.
‘Amelia Randall is entitled to make a living doing whatever she wishes. The Mail group of newspapers uses a horoscope section, yet is seeking in a snobbish way to embarrass Amelia for trying to generate an income this way.
‘Jacqui Harris was cleared by the Conservative Party of antiSemitism. Mark Hoath reposted a scientist questioning scientific issues, and there are genuine concerns about the safety of the mRNA vaccines.
‘Richard Brown was rude about a politician. He also shared claims that at the time were reported as fact. Edward Oakenfull was, like millions of British citizens, frustrated about illegal boat crossings, but has deleted his tweet with an apology.
‘Finally, Yvette Maxwell Darkes was removed from our candidates list earlier this week, prior to The Mail on Sunday contacting us. Perhaps The Mail on Sunday should focus on Britain’s huge challenges caused by Tory failures, that its readers are furious about, not pathetic nit-picking.’
‘Vaccine was greatest crime against humanity’