Up next in 10
Kemi Badenoch has said her party "believes in second chances", after the Conservatives selected a man who was once jailed for harassing a Jewish former MP as a local election candidate.
Joshua Bonehill-Paine posted on social media that he was "tremendously proud to announce" he has been chosen to stand for election to Somerset Council, in the Crewkerne South ward.
Mr Bonehill-Paine was jailed in 2016, after he was convicted of racially aggravated harassment.
He wrote several blog posts about the former Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree Baroness Luciana Berger, labelling her "an evil money-grabber" with a "deep-rooted hatred of men".
In one post, he claimed the number of Jewish Labour MPs was a "problem".
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0:00
Lewis Goodall is here to fill us all in on some more of the detail here, presenter of Sundays with Lewis Goodall, of course, and co-host of the podcast, The News Agents
0:08
I mean, to me, this seems like a cut and dried case, but not to the Conservative Party
0:13
It's a peculiar one, this, isn't it, Sheila? Not least when, of course, we must remember, and I think plenty of listeners, viewers will think entirely rightly
0:20
it's fair to say, I think, that the Conservative Party has had a pretty hard line over the years when we're thinking about some of the things that have been said on the pro-Palestine marches
0:29
for example. You know, lots of accusations of anti-Semitism, some of them justified, some
0:33
not justified, but not much call from the Conservative Party leadership for rehabilitation
0:37
or much understanding of what they might be trying to get at. And here we've got a situation where
0:43
we've got a Conservative councillor, or wannabe councillor, I should just say, who was just
0:48
a few days ago. It's not just a fact that he was a neo-Nazi, but he literally conducted an
0:53
anti-Semitic campaign of abuse against a then-sitting Jewish Labour MP back in 2016
1:00
for which she's still saying she is living with the profound and deep impacts of those events
1:05
a decade later. And of course, he was jailed in 2015 for more than three years after posting
1:12
anti-Semitic material online before a planned neo-Nazi rally. Now, look, I am actually the
1:18
first one to say and and you've already um you've already outlined some of this sheila i think the
1:23
idea of forgiveness is one that in our political culture we don't prioritize enough i think we're
1:28
very censorious i think our society has become more shrill and has become more censorious about
1:33
all manner of things and there should absolutely be a space and a place for redemption for admission
1:40
for someone to come forward with contrition and for learning and for learning because we all do
1:45
throughout our lives and we all make mistakes as you said Sheila I'm interested to hear about some of yours when we're
1:49
off air but you know we all do that I'm having to share the water if you want well maybe not pre-water sharing
1:55
but you know there absolutely should be a place for that but as Luciana Berger the targeted
2:01
former Labour MP now Baroness Berger has said herself there is a difference between redemption
2:07
re-acceptance into society and being permitted and having the right to stand for political office
2:15
that is a gift that is conferred upon someone from a political party
2:21
And I think, obviously, the criticism for Badeknoch here would be to say, fine, contrition's good, forgiveness is good, redemption is good
2:28
but two potential points of criticism for her. One is to say that although of course this gentleman if he working with Prevent he doing the right thing now that a good thing that a learning arc that a sort of journey that we want to see in society But nonetheless the gravity and extremity of the crimes the crimes not just sort of social problems or saying things that we find offensive or difficult or uncomfortable actual crime
2:54
The gravity of those crimes is such, what is the signal that you are sending to the Jewish community
3:00
and also about how you deal with racism and harassment generally? And secondly, how does it tally with Kemi Badenok and her party's extremely strident criticism of, say, the Labour Party and its record on anti-Semitism
3:13
or, as I say, the direct action that we've seen, we've seen the marches which have taken place week after week
3:20
with the most vituperative criticism from the Conservative Party for people just saying expressions
3:25
Now, people have problems with those expressions, fine. But it is as nothing as a comparison to what Mr Bonehill-Payne has done
3:31
And I was reading the judge's remarks in one of the cases that he faced
3:36
Didn't show much contrition then. No, he did not. But the description goes a lot further than..
3:42
I mean, it's bad enough when it's anti-Semitism in and of itself, but it became threatening sexual language in nature
3:49
So very deviant stuff, I would argue. Now, my sort of just personal expectation would be that if I
3:59
let's say I had a conviction for, I don't, by the way, but let's say I had a conviction for, I don't know, shoplifting
4:05
multiple shoplifting as a young woman, I would just quietly assume I could never be an MP
4:13
Maybe wrongly, but I would think, I can't start saying to the British public
4:17
vote for me when I used to be a thief. Is this your way of telling us
4:22
No, it's not my... I know we do confessions, but no, it's not a confession. But I wouldn't..
4:26
Keep around Marx and Spencer's. I would think... True. I'd go to M&S and Waitrose, of course
4:32
But I would assume there was a line that had been crossed there that meant..
4:37
Not that I could never have a future for myself, but that I couldn't then claim to be
4:41
of civic enough standing to ask people for their vote. Well, I suppose we have had an example of this recently, haven't we, with someone who's got to the very top of government, which is Lou Hay, the de facto Deputy Prime Minister
4:51
Of course, she had an hour spent conviction over that incident with her mobile phone when she was a young woman
4:57
And of course, again, I think a lot of people would say, look, she paid a political price for it, she's come back now, and again, that's an example of redemption
5:06
But it was Kemi Badenok again and this is where the politics gets difficult it Kemi Badenok who was most criticising her She said at the time when she came back into government that we need conviction politicians not politicians with convictions Well you know this gentleman here and what has been convicted of crimes which are of a far greater gravity and seriousness than anything Lou Hay did or didn do
5:29
And this is the other problem, I think, with Baydanox justification. I think this is really peculiar
5:34
I think actually this starts to show her weakness in how she deals with these sorts of things sometimes, which is in a pretty dogmatic way
5:40
She says she values straight talking. Well, her explanation for this is, well, don't worry everybody
5:46
because this gentleman, he's not going to be doing anything important. He's just going to be in local government
5:50
He's just going to be sorting out bins. Now, first of all, that's pretty demeaning
5:53
to the thousands of conservative councillors there are out there. You're basically saying, it's all right, anyone can do it
5:59
Even neo-Nazis or former neo-Nazis, not a problem. They're only sorting the bins out
6:03
I mean, the Nazis, they sorted out the bins, didn't they? You know, that sort of thing. That's a kind of ridiculous kind of justification to say
6:08
But secondly, as well, what it suggests or what it also, because she's basically saying, look, I have a far higher threshold for national politicians than local ones
6:19
In saying that, she is just as a matter of logic accepting that there is a bar, there is a threshold where even redemption and rehabilitation would not apply
6:29
Because what she's saying is, is that, yes, it's fine for him to stand in local government, but I wouldn't allow him to stand in national government
6:35
Now, once you've basically accepted that, and you've accepted that rehabilitation only goes so far, there's got to be a reason why you wouldn't
6:42
And naturally and logically, others will apply that threshold at a different place
6:47
And that's the criticism that she's never going to get, because she's now got to explain, well, what is it that's OK about local governments that wouldn't be OK about putting them in the House of Commons
6:55
And I also, this is my own theory, just based on my own sense of things
7:00
if a person as an adult now not as a 12 year old who got into the wrong crowd but as an adult if a
7:07
person can become a neo-nazi extremist he's a young man at the time but yeah yeah but he wasn't
7:12
a kid no um i think if you show that there's space within you for that kind of stuff um for extremism
7:19
then i think you probably that is part of your again this is just my theory or my sense of people
7:27
is that that is part of your makeup and that down the line it would be part of your makeup again
7:32
and i noticed from ai videos that he makes online um not all political but some of them political
7:38
they're incredibly immature they take um you know sort of being uh ribald and attacking your
7:46
political opponents to several degrees further to becoming just utterly ludicrous and actually would make me if i were his boss politically in in a party say what are you thinking putting those things out well i think you just basically put your finger not for the first time um you put your finger on exactly basically the kind of dilemma here right
8:03
which is that it is entirely legitimate right and actually made not right we want people in public
8:08
life who have been de-radicalized you know who who have never needed to be de-radicalized in the
8:13
first place that's true but there's still because there's so much radicalization going on in our society, it is not a bad thing to have people who've looked down the rabbit hole, perhaps gone
8:21
into the rabbit hole and re-emerge and actually seen the world as it truly is and can say, look
8:26
I've been there. I know why you're feeling this. I know why you're angry. I've seen the stuff
8:30
online. I was taken in by it, but I'm telling you now, you know, that has a value. Yeah, that's true
8:34
The question is, of course, is whether in order to do that work, those people need to be in local
8:40
government or in the House of Commons or just doing something as mundane, as Kenny Badenock has
8:44
said, sorting out the bins. Because although we might value rehabilitation, which we should
8:48
as I say, we're definitely too censorious, we definitely should have more redemption in
8:53
our national and public life. The question is whether the value of that for any given
8:58
individual is worth the cost, the pain, the signal that it sends in allowing someone with
9:05
that past to stand to the signal to the affected communities, in this case to Luciana Berger
9:11
specifically. Sometimes it might be, and this is where the distinction is, isn't it? Sometimes it might be
9:17
that of course you can be rehabilitated, of course you can make a new life, of course
9:21
you can leave your past behind. But your authority as a politician has blown out the water
9:25
already. But if you're trying to become a politician, you can't wholly leave your past behind
9:30
Those scars are still there because of the signal that it sends by your
9:34
entry into public life. And look, that's a value judgement, but can we not be
9:38
surprised that there will be plenty of people from Luciana Berger down who have a problem with this
9:44
And the comparisons you've made with her attitude to other sins in other parties is..
9:50
She's not normally... I mean, she herself has said I don't usually believe in rehabilitation
9:53
She said I'm not usually a big one for rehabilitation. But in this case... But I make
9:58
an exception for neo-Nazis. She's a pretty dogmatic kind of politician. That's one of her strengths. That's one of the things that people
10:05
like about her. But that's the problem. When you show such dogmatism
10:10
generally speaking in different directions and you're so black and white about how other people behave
10:17
it then becomes a little bit difficult to then say well in this case we should show more shade of grey
10:22
well interesting thank you very much Lewis let's see how people see it
10:28
Lewis Goodall host of the newsagents and knows the old Parker it's 1.16
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