A Reform UK candidate for next month’s council elections was twice disciplined by the Conservatives over allegedly offensive or racist comments, while another shared conspiracy theories about Covid, it has emerged, as the full slate of candidates was confirmed.
More than 5,000 council places in England are being contested on 7 May, along with several mayoralties, and elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, in a significant test for all the major parties.
Councils began publishing lists of confirmed candidates on Friday, after the closure of nominations at 4pm on Thursday. Reform say they are standing candidates in just over 95% of seats, around as many as Labour. Nigel Farage, Reform UK’s leader, has said the party’s vetting procedures have been beefed up.
One of its candidates for Bolton council is Derek Bullock, a former Conservative who was suspended by the party over allegations he posted a racist comment about people of Pakistani heritage on Facebook. Bullock said screenshots showing the comment were faked.
Bullock was a Tory candidate for the council in 2023 when images emerged of a post sent at the time of the 2017 Manchester Arena terrorist attack in which he allegedly used a racial slur to call for people of Pakistani heritage to be shot.
The Conservatives disowned his candidacy, and Bullock won as an independent. Earlier, in 2020, Bullock had faced internal disciplinary action by the Conservatives after allegedly posting an anti-Islam article on Facebook .
A Reform spokesperson said: “Mr Bullock has always strongly maintained that this image is fake and has reported this resurfaced material to the police. Mr Bullock is a valued member of his community and is currently a trustee of the Asian Elders’ Resource Centre in Bolton.”
Reform has separately said that among its candidates for Sunderland council is Glenda Hall, whose Facebook page includes posting a video setting out Covid conspiracy theories, and appearing to recommend a blog post describing Afghan men as “sexual predators”.
In 2020, Hall shared what she called an “interesting video” about whether Covid is the “hoax of the century” by a renowned conspiracy theorist called Vernon Coleman. He has described the pandemic as the “greatest fraud in human history”, calling it an exaggerated scare created by “the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, the Bliderbergers and the Jesuits”.
Last year she recommended a Substack post about, as she called it, “secret immigration of Afghans into the UK”.
The post calls Afghan men “sexual predators”, arguing that stories about the murder of Afghan men by western troops might have been “wishful thinking motivated by revulsion at the sexual behaviour of Afghan men.”
She added: “Personally I hope they were true.”
Reform has been contacted for comment on Hall. A Labour party spokesperson called the comments “utterly deplorable”.
“Nigel Farage has repeatedly boasted about Reform’s vetting procedures,” the spokesperson said. “Yet again, his party is insulting voters by standing individuals who are completely unfit for public office. Farage needs to urgently condemn these vile remarks and sack them as Reform candidates.”
Reform are forecast to make significant gains across a number of councils, as well as in Scotland and Wales. While Labour and the Conservatives are expected to experience heavy losses, the Green party are hoping to win a number of seats amid a surge in polling under Zack Polanski, the party’s leader in England and Wales since September.
On Friday evening, the Greens said they had candidates standing in 89% of the English local council seats being contested, far higher than in any previous election. Their previous highest was 72%, set last year.
Earlier in the week, the Greens took a seat from Reform on Kent council, often described as Reform’s “flagship” administration, after a byelection prompted by the sitting Reform councillor being jailed for controlling or coercive behaviour towards his wife.