Reform UK will not withdraw support from four candidates who compared Britain’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic to the Holocaust, a spokesman has told the JC.
The latest revelations about extremist comments made by representatives of the insurgent right-wing party follow Nigel Farage’s claim that a vetting firm had stitched them up.
The Reform UK leader threatened to take legal action against Vetting.com over its failure to properly scrutinise parliamentary candidates.
In comments revealed by the Mail, a string of candidates made comparisons between Covid-19 lockdowns and Nazi Germany.
Writing on Facebook in 2021, Jake Fraser, who is standing in Widnes and Halewood, said: “We're on the precipice of a Health Holocaust.
"The same methodology the Nazis used to rise to power with minimal opposition by appealing to both sides of the political spectrum... is unfolding before our eyes.
He added: “The rhetoric was a tip of the hat to parallels of totalitarianism employed by National Socialists during the rise of Hitler prior to (not during) the Holocaust.”
Angela Carter-Begbie, standing in Queen's Park and Maida Vale, said: “It's true. The behaviour of the jabbed towards the un-jabbed was boarder line [sic] the Holocaust.”
Pete Durnell, Smethwick, West Midlands wrote on social media in 2020: “[The] idea that elderly and/or infirm should be forcibly isolated, virtually indefinitely, is one which fits better with 1940s Germany than a modern day democracy.”
While he previously did not understand why, in Nazi Germany, “ordinary German folk meekly comply with orders to hate and persecute Jews, with zero justification,” Durnell said he was now watching, “something so similar unfold around me.”
John Edwards, a candidate in Southampton West, condemned a Canadian rail firm that, “tells vaccinated travellers to wear a yellow sticker”, adding: “Nazi Germany did something similar.”
Reform UK previously refused to drop a candidate who said Britain would be better off had it chosen not to fight Nazi Germany.
Ian Gribbin, who is standing in Bexhill and Battle, apologised for online posts he made in 2022 in which he claimed: "Britain would be in a far better state today had we taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality…. but oh no Britain’s warped mindset values weird notions of international morality rather than looking after its own people."
Speaking to the JC, a Reform spokesman said Britain would have been better off had it not fought Nazi Germany, but that taking on Hitler was the right thing to do nonetheless.
In April, two Reform UK parliamentary candidates were dropped after making allegedly racist and antisemitic remarks.
One candidate ranted about “Ashenazis” and suggested that Jews should not hold elected office in the UK.
Selected as Reform’s candidate for Orpington before the party dropped him, Mick Greenhough said the “problem is the Askenazi Jews who have caused the world massive misery”.
