Free from fear or favour
No tracking. No cookies

Reform Party Candidates Continue to Make Richard Tice’s Insistence the Party is not Far-Right Seem Questionable – Here’s More Examples

For the second time this week Byline Times exposes more Reform UK candidates sharing content from far-right influencers and commentators

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and chairman, Richard Tice, enjoy a beer during a launch event at Clacton-on-Sea on June 4. Photo: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage and chairman, Richard Tice, enjoy a beer during a launch event at Clacton-on-Sea on June 4. Photo: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy

Byline Times is an independent, reader-funded investigative newspaper, outside of the system of the established press, reporting on ‘what the papers don’t say’ – without fear or favour.

To support its work, subscribe to the monthly Byline Times print edition, packed with exclusive investigations, news, and analysis.

Reform UK is nothing if not consistent – with the party’s candidates consistently engaging in racist, xenophobic or conspiratorial rhetoric online and sharing content from far-right figures.

So, for the second time this week, Byline Times has found more examples of party members doing their best to make their former leader, and current chairman, Richard Tice’s comments about Reform UK not being a “far-right party” seem questionable.

Days after Ian Gribbin, the party’s candidate in Bexhill and Battle, apologised after claiming the UK would be “far better” if it had “taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality” instead of fighting the Nazis in World War Two (as well as saying women were the “sponging gender”, should be “deprived of health care”, and praising Vladimir Putin) two more candidates have been caught sharing and engaging with content from, or about, far-right influencers like Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson, and Katie Hopkins.

EXCLUSIVE

More Reform UK Candidates Caught Sharing Conspiracy Theories, Racist Memes and Marxist Conservatism

One Reform candidate defended himself by suggesting that his social profile makes clear that his retweets and likes “are not endorsements”

Sandra Daniells, the owner of a care home and Reform‘s candidate in Bognor Regis and Littlehampton retweeted Robinson sharing a photo of himself and Hopkins in April, and also replied with the word “hope” to a post from February asking, “what’s the first thing that comes to mind when you see this?” over photos of the former English Defence League leader, Hopkins, Nigel Farage, Lee Anderson and Suella Braverman.

In February, Daniells replied to a post from Paul Golding, the leader of the far-right Britain First party accusing Reform UK of being an establishment party for arguing in favour of “net zero” immigration rather than 0 total immigration. Daniells replied, “I don’t agree, I was a Tory for years and gave up with them and joined Reform because their policies broadly reflect my views, and no other parties do. We must give them a chance before its too late”.

The Times revealed on Tuesday that 41 of Reform UK’s candidates are Facebook friends with Garry Raikes, leader of the New British Union, a party attempting a 21st century revival of the British Union of Fascists. That number includes Daniells.

Raikes’ Facebook cover photo is a picture of Oswald Mosely with the caption, “Forward with Fascism. Support for Mosely is support for King and country”.  

Byline Times needs your help to investigate disinformation and electoral exclusion as we head towards the 2024 General Election.

We’re asking for your help to keep track of dodgy campaigning this election, so if you spot anything that bears investigation, please email us at votewatch24@bylinetimes.com.

Daniells has also written Islamophobic posts or posts that espouse white identity politics. Replying to a tweet from Rory Stewart, who argued that Lee Anderson saying, “London is in the grip of Islamists” was “deluded” and an “awful obsession”, Daniells asked, “Is it Rory? It’s beginning to feel that way. Who will stand up to them or stand up for the white Christian folks.”

Daniells also replied to a February news story about former Scottish first Minister Humza Yousaf arguing that Islamophobia in the UK is getting worse with the question “has he asked himself why that might be I wonder? 😂”

X, formerly known as Twitter, now hides the likes tab, however, screenshots from the account ReformUKExposed show that Daniells liked a tweet telling someone to “get your hijab on… shut your mouth and go live in Palestine. Let’s see how happy you are there being sexually assaulted… disrespected. No voice. Yes? Now you want to be in the UK shouting your mouth off? Seriously deport this to her ‘Muslim’ home.” Her likes also included a photo of black people on a dingy captioned with the phrase “we are taking over the UK under your very noses and there’s nothing being done about it”.

EXCLUSIVE

Reform Candidate Andrew Raw Suspended by Party Over ‘Extreme Racism and Hateful’ Social Media Posts

Reform UK has had to drop at least 11 candidates and hasn’t stopped making headlines since Lee Anderson joined the party in March

Daniells told Byline Times: “All candidates are aware that there are hard left groups searching ‘likes’ in order to try and cancel candidates. They are opposed to freedom of speech. I am not. It is interesting to note that X have now taken action against these cancel culture groups by making ‘likes’ private. These hard left groups will not succeed in undermining democracy no matter how hard they try. On X – freedom of speech trumps cancel culture.”

When asked about being Facebook friends with Raikes, she said: “On the matter of a ‘Facebook Friend’  you allude to – I’m sorry but I really have no idea who he is, or what his views are – I have over 1800 ‘friends’ and no idea who most of them are, other than they have sent me friend requests, so I can’t help you with that.”

Darren Ingrouille Reform’s PPC for Chelmsford has also made racially insensitive posts and shared content from Robinson.

How Nigel Farage, Major Media Outlets and Ofcom ‘Normalised Islamophobia and Then Justified It’

Farage would be cancelled if he said the same things about Jews as he does Muslims – yet he gets endless airtime

In response to a post on X that shared crime figures in Bournemouth – supposedly obtained by FOI – and claiming they were positively correlated with the number of asylum seekers there, he worte, “Import the 3rd world get the 3rd world.”

Ingrouille also retweeted a post in February claiming that Enoch Powell was “chucked out of the Tory Party for telling the truth”. Powell was sacked from the shadow cabinet following the 1968 Rivers of Blood speech in which he claimed “in 15 or 20 years the black man will have the whip hand over the white man”. Farage once asked Powell for an endorsement of UKIP and called him his “political hero”.

In January, Ingrouille responded “so true. Vote Reform UK” to a picture of Powell with the caption, “Mass immigration has had a detrimental effect on our country and our people and it has decimated our infrastructure and resources and it has made many of our once beautiful English towns and cities look unrecognisable. Enoch was right.”

And on 1 June, Ingrouille replied to a post about one of Robinson’s rallies, writing: “We needed to hold this march to oppose the weekly hate marches in support of terrorist regimes.”

Byline Times asked Ingrouille if he attended or hosted the march, however he did not respond to a request for comment.

Georgie Laming, Director of Campaigns at Hope Not Hate said “countless” Reform UK candidates “have been exposed for hate speech, racism and the sharing of far-right content” despite the party denying being a far-right party, “but it is clear from investigations into their candidates that many racists see the party as an appropriate vehicle for their extreme politics”.

She continued: “Since Nigel Farage announced his takeover as Reform UK leader, compromised candidates are no longer axed instead they are quietly pushed to the side whilst Farage continues his country wide bus tour.”

Reform UK did not respond to a request for comment about Byline Times‘ latest social media discoveries.

ENJOYING THIS ARTICLE? HELP US TO PRODUCE MORE

Receive the monthly Byline Times newspaper and help to support fearless, independent journalism that breaks stories, shapes the agenda and holds power to account.

We’re not funded by a billionaire oligarch or an offshore hedge-fund. We rely on our readers to fund our journalism. If you like what we do, please subscribe.

On Monday, this newspaper reported on three Reform candidates controversial social media behaviour . Just weeks earlier the party confirmed it had dropped Andrew Raw, its candidate for Darlington, after we wrote about him being accused of sharing “extreme racism and hateful ideology”.

At that time, it was thought Raw was at least the 11th candidate Reform had binned since the party gained its first MP, following Anderson’s defection from the Conservative Party in March.


Written by

This article was filed under