A Former Neo-Nazi Was Given a Conservative Party Role. His Victim Says Take It Back.
Labour member Luciana Berger has called on Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch to reverse her decision to give former neo-Nazi activist Joshua Bonehill-Paine a national advisory role, urging Badenoch to "listen to victims." Berger, who was personally targeted by Bonehill-Paine in a campaign of racial harassment when she served as a member of Parliament, wrote that she was one of his victims and questioned whether his new position could bring him onto the parliamentary estate — the buildings where MPs and other officials work in London. The Guardian
Bonehill-Paine's path from far-right extremist to Conservative party adviser goes back more than a decade. He founded and led a far-right group called the National British Resistance. In 2015, he was jailed for more than three years after posting antisemitic (anti-Jewish) material online ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally. The following year, he was found guilty of racially aggravated harassment for abuse he directed at Berger during her time as a sitting MP. He also created a satirical publication called the Crewkerne Gazette. The Guardian
The controversy grew through the first week of August 2026. Bonehill-Paine was first selected as a Conservative council candidate in Somerset for an election scheduled the following year. After public backlash over his past, he withdrew his candidacy on August 5. Rather than cutting ties with him, Badenoch then appointed him as an adviser to the Conservative party's culture and integration commission — a group that works on issues like how different communities live and work together. The Guardian Channel 4 News
Badenoch had already publicly defended Bonehill-Paine before the advisory appointment. In a piece published in the Times on August 5, she described questions over his suitability to stand as a councillor in Somerset as a "pile-on" and praised what she called his "contrition," while noting that she applies higher standards for MP candidates than for councillor candidates. The Guardian
A spokesperson for Badenoch addressed the security concerns that Berger raised, stating that Bonehill-Paine would not have a parliamentary pass and would not be on the parliamentary estate. The spokesperson also said that Bonehill-Paine had served his time, completed Home Office Prevent counter-terrorism courses — a government programme aimed at stopping people being drawn into extremism — and had gone into schools to teach about combatting antisemitism and extremism. The Guardian
Badenoch framed her stance as a matter of principle. She said the Conservative party under her leadership was "the party of personal responsibility and law and order" and defended standing by beliefs "even when politically inconvenient." The Guardian
Berger rejected that framing. She said Bonehill-Paine should have no role in public life because of "his racism and his view of women." Her earlier appeal, made on August 4, called on the Conservatives to drop him as a candidate, and her latest intervention extends that demand to the advisory appointment itself. The Guardian
The broader context here is that the dispute turns on a question Badenoch's defence does not fully answer. Her spokesperson's account of rehabilitation, course completion, and school outreach describes steps Bonehill-Paine has taken. Berger's counterargument is that no amount of rehabilitation, even if taken at face value, erases the gravity of a conviction for harassing a sitting MP on racial grounds, or justifies bringing him close to the institutions of national government. The culture and integration commission, by its very purpose, deals with the kinds of social harmony questions on which Bonehill-Paine's criminal record is directly relevant.
For Badenoch, the calculation is double-edged. Defending Bonehill-Paine lets her show consistency on her stated themes of personal responsibility and second chances. It also risks tying the Conservative name to a figure whose convictions include antisemitic abuse directed at a Jewish MP, a fact that Berger's intervention keeps front and centre. Whether other Conservative politicians or party members will join Berger's call has not yet been tested. The advisory role does not carry parliamentary access, but it does carry the party's endorsement, and Berger's demand is that this endorsement itself be withdrawn.
