Racists, conspiracy theorists and anti-Christmas campaigners: meet the newly elected members of Nigel Farage’s People’s Army

Meanwhile, Glenn Gibbins, who won Hylton Castle ward on Sunderland City Council hs been suspended over a 2024 post in which he complained about the “amount of Nigerians in town”, adding, “Should melt them all down and fill in the pot holes!!” His colleague David Barker, newly elected councillor for Deptford and Hendon ward in Sunderland, may follow after it was revealed that in 2018 he was given a 22-week prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, after beating his then-girlfriend “black and blue”. The defence blamed his actions on Barker’s excessive cannabis use making him “paranoid”.

Jay Cooper, elected in the Bootle West ward on Sefton Council in  Merseyside, was allowed to stand by Reform despite having posted on social media that “the Hallocaust (sic) is a hoax. There wasn’t [sic] even 6 million Jews in Europe at the time. Propaganda”. Now Farage says Cooper is “not welcome” in the party.

Farage may want to look at another 15 of his May 7 winners who featured on The New World’s list of the worst Reform candidates.

Andy Mahon was elected to represent Blackburn South East on Blackburn with Darwen Council, despite writing on Facebook about his support for British fascist Oswald Mosley. He also used the n-word and made homophobic remarks about Wes Streeting and sexist comments about Angela Rayner and Green MP Hannah Spencer. He will be joined by another on our list, Janine Crook, who praised Enoch Powell as “phrophetic” (sic), called Blackburn “the biggest shithole in the UK”, engaged with content from extremist activists and was duly elected councillor for Darwen West.

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Rats in a Sack

Brett Muscroft, who shared posts supporting Tommy Robinson, saying that making the far right agitator criminal defence secretary would mean “we may get Great Britain back”, and Steven Lewis, who denounced Christmas as a pagan holiday to worship Saturn and called Easter and New Year’s demonic, are now both members of Wakefield Council.

Nathaniel Menday, a self-styled “ethno-nationalist” who posted a photo of Berlin’s Nazi-era Olympiastadion with the comment “Whichever group of people built this must have been real visionaries!”, was elected to represent Woodhouse on Sheffield City Council. Ben Rowe, meanwhile, who accused “the Jews” of “creating division by forcing other races on our societies” and described immigrants as “breeding like rats”, is councillor for Ham on Plymouth Council.

Derek Bullock, twice expelled by the Tories for Islamophobia, including a post – which he claims had been faked – after the Manchester Arena attack, saying “Shoot the Pakis on the spot”, is now the member for Hulton on Bolton Council.

Glenda Hall, who shared Covid conspiracy content – including what she called an “interesting video” about whether it was the “hoax of the century” – was elected to represent Tunstall and Humbledon on Sunderland Council, where she is joined by Paul Donaghy, who has had 10 of his companies struck off for breaching accounting rules and will sit for Washington North.

Russ Cherry, who shared content from Britain First leader Paul Golding and from Tommy Robinson, both of whom are supposedly persona non grata in Reform, is now councillor for Ockenden on Thurrock Council.

Malcolm Offord, Reform’s leader in Scotland who made a vile homophobic joke about George Michael during a Burns Night speech, later calling it “a clumsy mistake”, now represents West Scotland at Holyrood, where he is joined by Senga Beresford, who replied “me” to a post about Muslims from the deputy leader of far right Britain First, which said: “I demand that we deport the lot of them. Who’s with me?”. She now represents South Scotland.

Laura Anne Jones, who defected from the Conservatives last year to become Reform’s first member of the Senedd, retained her seat. She was suspended from the Senedd last year after using a racial slur about Chinese people. 

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Rats in a Sack

Jones will be joined in Cardiff Bay by Francesca O’Brien, who faced a backlash for comments suggesting benefit claimants needed “putting down”, has links to hard right activists and is now MS for Gŵyr Abertawe, and John Clark, the new MS for Bangor Conwy Môn who has claimed that “Nato wants to bleed Russia dry and are happy to use Ukraine as an excuse”.

Isn’t democracy fantastic!

Over on the hard left, meanwhile, it was a less successful night for the few candidates Jeremy Corbyn’s Your Party managed to stand, who overwhelmingly secured fewer than five per cent of the vote and lost their deposits.

The party, which continues to use a picture of Corbyn on stage at Glastonbury in 2017 as the main picture on its website, lost deposits in Stockport, Cambridge, Coventry, Salford and Waltham Forest.

It was also a mixed night for Daily Telegraph columnist and Reform cheerleader Allison Pearson, who managed to declare victory for her party on the seats being contested in Essex before a single vote had been counted.

At 11.41pm on election night – at a time when votes wouldn’t have even been validated, let alone tallied – Pearson posted on, inevitably, X that: “Reform takes ALL 14 seats in Basildon. Essex is lost to the Tories. Amazing result.” When one follower queried “Is this confirmed?”, Pearson responded “Yes”.

Alas, when the results were actually counted, Reform had only taken 11 of the seats, with the remaining three remaining true blue.