A man who used to lead a neo-Nazi group and has several criminal convictions — including harassing a member of Parliament — has been chosen as a Conservative Party candidate for a local election in Somerset, according to the Guardian. His name is Joshua Bonehill-Paine, and he is set to run for a seat on Somerset Council next year in a new area called Crewkerne South.

Bonehill-Paine told the Guardian he is an executive member of the Conservative Party's Yeovil branch, where he organises events. His selection means a candidate with a well-documented far-right past will appear on the ballot paper for one of Britain's biggest political parties.

That past is extensive. Bonehill-Paine founded and led a far-right group called the National British Resistance. He once described himself as a "nationalist, fascist, theorist and supporter of white rights." His criminal record includes several convictions for different types of offences. In 2014, he was convicted of malicious communications — which means sending harmful or threatening messages — after an anti-Islam hoax he created led to death threats against the owners of a pub in Leicester. The next year, he was jailed for more than three years for posting antisemitic (anti-Jewish) material online ahead of a planned neo-Nazi rally. In 2016, he was found guilty of racially aggravated harassment for abusing Luciana Berger, who was then a Labour MP. He also has convictions for assaulting a police officer and burgling a police station.

Bonehill-Paine also created something called the Crewkerne Gazette — a series of fake satirical video clips made using artificial intelligence (AI) that have been shared within Conservative Party circles. Think of it as political cartoons brought to life with AI, showing real politicians in made-up situations. Channel 4 News identified him as the person behind the series in March 2026, saying the anonymous creator had been compared to a "banksy of politics."

These videos have already reached the top levels of the Conservative Party. Rebecca Harris, the Conservative chief whip — the MP whose job is to keep party members in line — was criticised earlier this year for sharing a Crewkerne Gazette video that showed politicians Kemi Badenoch and Nick Timothy as characters from the gangster film Scarface. The fact that a senior party figure shared content made by a man convicted of extremism-related offences brings this story beyond a single local election.

The selection raises questions about how the Conservative Party checks the backgrounds of people who want to run under its name. Local party branches have a lot of freedom to pick their own candidates, and it is unclear how much control the party's central leadership has over those choices. Somerset Council keeps an official directory of election notices, which would formally list candidates once the election process begins.

The broader context here involves several trends happening at the same time in British politics. People with extremist pasts have sometimes tried to enter mainstream politics before, so Bonehill-Paine's path from neo-Nazi leader to Conservative candidate is not entirely new. What makes this case stand out is the combination of how serious and how many his convictions are, the fact that he is still actively creating AI-generated political content, and the fact that a senior party figure has already shared that content publicly.

The election in Crewkerne South is scheduled for next year. That gives the Conservative Party time to decide whether to let the selection stand or step in. Whatever the party decides — or decides not to do — will be judged against wider concerns about who is allowed to represent a major party. For people living in the new Crewkerne South district, the ballot paper may include a candidate whose past has been detailed by a national newspaper, and whose current activities in AI-generated political content have already reached the office of the chief whip.