Does anyone understand Badenoch’s thinking about Joshua Bonehill-Paine…

[CurlewKate]

…and if they do, can they explain it to me, please?

Nope it screams if desperation to grab Reform voters she thinks this will wash with.
In doing so, I suspect she’ll lose the minimal support she may have already had.
Disappointing & utterly baffling from a woman born in the UK, but spent all of her childhood & early adulthood in Lagos & the U.S, only to return to the UK aged 17.
She has deluded herself for far too long & forgotten where she’s from. Epic fail.

No.

It reveals a serious issue with her character where she misjudges something and then her love of a scrap means she sticks to her guns.

See also advocacy of joining Trump's war on Iran.

As leftie who believes in reform (of character), I believe people can change and play a part too in helping others escape the world of hatred.

Of course, me being a leftie probably means someone standing as a Tory candidate maybe means they still have a steak of hatred in them... towards lefties. Hatred is too strong a word here maybe. Because their policy leans more to the opposite of my thoughts on reform (of character).

But it does depend if the guy was open about his past and ran on a part policy of helping others overcome hatred.

Reading about him, where the article says, "However he more recently claimed to have had a change of heart, suggesting his views had softened in prison after reading The Boy in the Striped Pajamas – a tale set in the Auschwitz concentration camp.", I can't help but think something is really messed up about education, or just general awareness of bloody recent history.

Source for quote.

Ex-Neo Nazi picked to run as Tory council candidate pulls out of race | News UK | Metro News

If he’d reformed he’d apologise to Luciana Berger.

Agree. When he stepped down, she should have left it there, not offered him a job.

Article here where he says " It was a Conservative government that facilitated my rehabilitation while I was in prison. I firmly believe in giving people second chances when they have demonstrably changed, taken responsibility for their actions and can use their experiences to help make our country better"

Luciana Berger blasts Tories for selecting former neo-Nazi who targeted her as a local election candidate - The Jewish Chronicle (thejc.com)

But Baroness Berger, one of his victims says " “I was 6 months pregnant when I had to give evidence at the Old Bailey for this case. It was 2 days of hell. I count myself lucky though."

"There were other victims whose lives he had totally destroyed. We learned from the victim impact statements read out in court that they were no longer able to work or maintain relationships with their partners and family because of his campaign of hate directed at them."

“He showed zero contrition and thought it ok to do a full blown Nazi salute to his supporters in the gallery.”

“This case still haunts me.

No mention of him apologizing to her.

Yes. And she said him being a councillor wasn’t like bringing him into government-then she brought him into government…..

He must surely have something on her …

There’s no other reasonable explanation.

Nope.
Conservative Party Member since 1978.
But I supported Tom Tugendhat.

I'm just about OK with a person who has a spent conviction standing for election.

An ex neo Nazi OTOH.....

Badenoch isn’t! Or hasn’t been in the past…..

The point was that Bonehill-Paine was previously a neo Nazi.

Absolutely. I was just pointing out that Badenoch has been very outspoken about not appointing people with spent convictions whatever the crime!

It is confusing for sure. The ex-Nazi says that it was Tory policy that reformed him, but in general Tory policy is not to reform but to lock up and throw away the key. The party of law and order.

And in the articles I have seen the guy is slamming the lib dems but the lib dems are historically for prison reform.

Seems to be mixed messaging here, with a massive dog whistle thrown in too. Look at me, I was a Nazi but the "tough love" of the Tories cured and reformed me. Vote Tory and we will lock people up and throw away the key.

Oh. And racism and antisemitism are bad, vote Tory because they are moving towards reform.

All sort of odd.

Her position makes no sense. He should never have been considered. Law breakers shouldn't be law makers. That applies as much to local government as it does central government.

I was just starting to quite like Kemi.

Oh well.

His personal account of how he became radicalised then realised he was wrong is worth reading: https://www.thecrewkerneman.com/inside-the-mind-of-an-antisemite-and-how-i-escaped-it/

Assuming he is telling the truth about all the anti-radicalisation work he's done, I can see why Kemi thought he was worth supporting, though it's a tough call.

I do think that as a society we should allow some rehabilitation of convicted criminals and fanatics who have genuinely changed their ways.

I'm very much in favour of giving people second chances if they have truly reflected and changed, but given that Bonehill Payne appears to have at least flirted with the idea of standing for Reform before deciding to try with the Tories, I'm less than convinced that his rehabilitation is at all genuine.

It is a curious error of judgement from Badenoch, and she has done herself no favours by sticking with her original stance. I think she prides herself on being a person with convictions who doesn't u-turn under pressure, but when you've clearly got something horribly wrong, I think there comes a point where you have to acknowledge that you've made a mistake. Her reluctance to do this may well prove to be her undoing.

Really interesting read, thanks for posting.

Seems he's gone from demonizing Jews to idealizing them as God's chosen people, bound up in the story of salvation. It's swapping one form of 'othering ' one group for another form of doing the same.

I'm glad he's found a more positive way of life but I think he's fundamentally unsuited for government.

It’s a tough one. I used to work in a school where ex heroin addicts would come in to talk to the kids about how much they regretted their life choices and urge them not to make the same mistakes. The anti drug messaging was harder hitting coming from someone that used to be an addict and could speak honestly about how they got into it. But some people would probably question if ex addicts should be allowed into schools.

So I kind of can understand where Kemi was coming from. People can change. But I also think maybe she was a bit naive in the current climate.

I agree about the weird othering of Jews and that he wouldn't be suitable to be an MP.

He was standing to be a local councillor though which is a bit different and obviously has no national remit... but yes can certainly see why people think he's still unsuitable.

It is not for us to question Kemi. She never makes gaffes, so never has to apologise.

I suggest instead you work on yourself and your thinking to understand where you are wrong.

Some people don't like to admit they are wrong. Kemi Badenoch picked the wrong time to do so.

Kemi is never wrong, so she never has to apologise.

From that link : "That is one of the things people still fail to understand about antisemitism. It is not just a prejudice in the ordinary sense, and it is not simply a dislike of Jews. It is a total explanatory system. It offers a villain for every disappointment, a culprit for every humiliation, an answer for every chaos. It can make a failed man feel like a prophet. It can make paranoia feel like insight."

Actually, most of us do understand that. Including the same politicians who are doing it now, but using "others". Now it's migrants and Muslims who are the target. And if anyone points that out, they are accused of being " an elite", of hating the working class. Even when it us, the working class who are saying it.

This is the bit I was looking to see if it was there:

"The shame of it is that I already knew what antisemitism was. Before that collapse, I had taken an interest in the history of the Second World War. I had watched Downfall. I had watched The World at War. I knew what Nazism was."

This is where I feel his case falls down a bit. Because in a post above, I linked a Metro article where he says the he changed from reading "The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" in prison. And he found out what had happened.

But he had already studied it all as a Nazi. That is a whole big part of being a Nazi. Being a Nazi and not knowing that they done is like a Christian saying they have never heard of Jesus.

He was not doing what he was doing because the Austrian Corporal ran the trains on time.

Another bit. "I embraced boycotts of Israel and even organised demonstrations in support of Palestine. I remember inviting George Galloway to one of them."

Combine that with

"At that stage I also became absorbed in the language of “cultural Marxism”."

Yeah. That does not tie in at all. Given that Galloway is an actual Marxist. Or was. He does Propaganda today for the Communist Party of China. So far as I am aware, "Cultural Marxism" is where it is the left who are under the influence of the Jews. So I can't see how he manages to fit Galloway in.

With those point's, I am not buying it.

Another bit that stands out to me is this :

I began to understand why so many Christians see the restoration of Israel as bound up with the faithfulness of God to His promises and with the long, battered continuity of the Jewish people through history.

Ahh right. So he has gone evangelical. I wonder if that is the US style. The second temple must be rebuilt so Jesus comes back and kills everyone ?

Looks to me as if he is now a Christian Nationalist now ? Esp with the trip to the US.