Why is Nigel Farage “too woke” for Kemi Badenoch?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
This is a Global Production.

**Emily Maitlis** (0:05)
The man at the center of our discussion, Joshua Bonehill-Paine, decided to withdraw from next year's local elections for the Conservative Party, and told us within the same breath that the Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, had instead asked him to become an advisor.

**Lewis Goodall** (0:24)
And what she's seeing this as, more than anything else, as you say, is an opportunity to show the online right, that you're not going to get bashed around by the Libs, you're not going to get bashed around by the Wokerati. But you know what, if you have been a neo-Nazi, and you've been convicted, it is a political principle within a democracy, or within a political party to say, thanks but no thanks for having you in our party. Because you know what it does, it sends a strong political message to the rest of politics, that actually, you know what, this stuff on some level is okay.

**Jon Sopel** (0:55)
I'm afraid we're going to have to talk a little bit about Joshua Bonehill-Paine today.
Your leader, Kemi Badenoch, said that she's sad that he's had to stand down. Are you sad?

**SPEAKER_5** (1:06)
I think it's sad that Joshua is not, as he said, going to be able to have the space to not only talk about how much he's changed, but also demonstrate that he's changed and the work he's doing to tackle extremism and antisemitism in our communities.

**Jon Sopel** (1:24)
So just explain to us then why you think he, a person sent to prison for being a racist antisemite, is a good fit for the Culture Integration Commission.

**SPEAKER_5** (1:32)
Antisemitism and extremism is a massive problem in our country and it's getting worse for a lot of Jewish people.

**Jon Sopel** (1:39)
And you fully believe that he has reformed and doesn't believe the things that he did previously?

**SPEAKER_5** (1:45)
Also in prison, he does seem to have been fully rehabilitated.

**Jon Sopel** (1:49)
I mean, the victim of all of this, Baroness Berger, doesn't see that at all. She remembers being six months pregnant when she had to sit through the evidence as he sat there smirking at one point, I think, even giving a Nazi salute, speaking to his supporters in the audience in the courtroom. She said that all of this is a poor idea by the Conservative Party. He certainly shouldn't be on that commission. What about respecting her views and beliefs?

**Emily Maitlis** (2:17)
Is a former neo-Nazi activist really the best person to tackle anti-Semitism in our culture? And if the answer is yes, why has he just pulled his candidacy from the Conservative Party?

**Lewis Goodall** (2:33)
Yesterday, we asked why the conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, had allowed a former neo-Nazi to stand for her party. Today, we're asking why she just promoted him. Welcome to The News Agents.

**Emily Maitlis** (2:49)
It's Maitlis.

**Lewis Goodall** (2:50)
It's Lewis.

**Emily Maitlis** (2:50)
And really, just as we were publishing our episode last night with almost perfect timing, the man at the center of our discussion, Joshua Bonehill-Paine, decided to withdraw from next year's local elections for the Conservative Party in a seat in Somerset and told us within the same breath that she was the conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, who had up until that point not just stood by him, but vocally defended him on air, had instead asked him to become an advisor to the party's culture and integration commission. He will specifically focus on how young men are becoming radicalized. So in one sense, they have avoided this whole question of going to voters and asking them to vote for a former convicted neo-Nazi.
On the other hand, she's now paying him directly.

**Lewis Goodall** (3:50)
This really, I think, cuts to the heart of exactly Kemi Badenoch's justification for this in the first place, which is that yesterday, and it was, as we said, it was a very peculiar justification. She basically said that this guy, convicted neo-Nazi, as we said on the show yesterday, not just that, but truly heinous series of incidents of harassment against Luciana Berger, the former Labour MP, now Baroness. We read out some of the sentencing remarks from the judge yesterday. I don't actually think that a lot of the commentary around this has really done what he did to her justice, and really sort of, you know, this wasn't just an example of profound racism and xenophobia, antisemitism. It was the most crude and appalling misogyny.
What he subjected her to, something which she said she's still living with today. Now, Kemi Badenoch said, her justification was, that, look, this is a guy who's reformed, he's been rehabilitated, he's a good person to have speaking about antisemitism, having been being de-radicalized, all of which may be true. But she also said that one of the justifications was, look, this is a guy who's just sorting out the bins and sorting out the parking. So let's not worry about it too much.