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A Reform UK candidate has been accused of sharing “extreme racism and hateful ideology” online – in what has become a regular occurrence for the party that insists it is not far-right.
Since gaining its first MP, following Lee Anderson’s defection from the Conservative Party in March, Reform has remained in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Later that month, North Bedfordshire PPC Nick Davies resigned as a candidate after his party “spoke to him about the content of his social media”, following questions raised by Byline Times about the social media activity of several of Reform’s prospective parliamentary candidates.
On 4 March, Davies shared a post which featured the text “evil doesn’t die. It reinvents itself” over pictures of London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Adolf Hitler. He also shared posts in September and October calling immigrants an “invasion” and a “silent army housed in hotels”.
Byline Times also exposed other posts by candidates – Andrew Husband, the Reform PPC for North Durham; and Maggie Moriondo, the Reform PPC for Bedford – which were racialised, denied the existence of climate change, and promoted conspiracy theories.
Andrew Raw, the Reform UK candidate for Darlington, is now being criticised for sharing and liking content from figures on Britain’s far-right such as Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (‘Tommy Robinson’), the leaders of Britain First, and Jayda Fransen the Leader of the British Freedom Party.
Raw posts under the handle Andyraw6 on X (formerly Twitter), but uses a glum-looking picture of Tony Soprano as his profile picture. He has 67 followers. A source, who knows the father-of-two, confirmed to Byline Times that it was Raw’s account. The account supports Reform UK and is followed by accounts from Darlington.
On X, Raw invoked the ‘Great Replacement’ conspiracy theory in response to a tweet from Nigel Farage, in which the Reform UK Honorary President posted about the number of refugee crossings from France on 8 July 2023, writing: “Population Replacement Agenda 2050. Goodbye to us Native Britons. We will be no more.”
Reform Parliamentary Candidate Who Shared Racist Content Resigns After Questions by Byline Times
Nick Davies shared a post featuring London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Adolf Hitler
Population replacement – also known as replacement migration or the ‘Great Replacement’ – is a far-right conspiracy theory originating in the writings of the French fascist author Renaud Camus, who argues that there is a deliberate plot to eliminate the West’s white population by importing other races with higher birth rates.
In response to a tweet asking “does anybody else hate it when you pass an immigran… in the street and they look at you and disrespect you like you are unwelcome and the immigrant in their country”, Raw wrote: “2 made my 85 UR old mother step off the pavement into busy traffic as they wouldn’t concede any pavement, walking side by side. They both laughed at her. In their 30s.”
Raw also posted a tweet stating: “No one asked our opinion. They just opened the doors to anyone. Murderers, rapists, con men. Gangster peadofiles [sic], hate preachers, antisemites/ The list goes on. No one knows who is here now… Thank you politicians for dissolving our country.”
Raw has also shared tweets from English Defence League co-founder Yaxley-Lennon, and liked racist and white supremacist tweets from the leaders of far-right parties Britain First and the British Freedom Party.
This included liking posts claiming that “the white race has achieved more than all other races combined”, and one referring to Poland as “a patriotic European nation” because – in the eyes of Britain First Leader Paul Golding, who posted the tweet – there is “no immigration, no multiculturalism. No diversity”.
Reform UK has insisted that it is not a far-right party – something Aurelien Mondon, Senior Lecturer in Politics at Bath University who researches the mainstreaming of the far-right across Europe, does not accept.