17 June 2024 , 07:50
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A Reform UK candidate has been forced to quit the party after it emerged he had previously encouraged people to vote for the BNP.
Grant StClair-Armstrong is registered as the party's candidate for North West Essex, where he is running against Tory business secretary Kemi Badenoch. He has now resigned as a member of Reform after messages he posted a blog in 2010 emerged, where he called for people to vote for the British National Party.
The Times reports he posted: "I could weep now, every time I pick up a British newspaper and read the latest about the state of the UK. No doubt, Enoch Powell would be doing the same if he was alive. My solution … vote BNP!"
Other blog posts reportedly included racial slurs made about Chinese and Pakistani people, and about “female hormones”. When approached by the newspaper about the blog post, Mr StClair-Armstrong said: “I’ve got no excuses for that. I think they’re a disgusting party. I don’t like the English Defence League. I don’t like them.”
He also admitted he did not “really see any alternative” than handing in his resignation. Speaking to the BBC, Mr StClair-Armstrong said he had “never supported the BNP” and had been forced to stand down by Reform UK. He told the broadcaster: “I would have let the people decide. I bitterly regret all of those comments made many years ago and I am just sorry that some people deemed it necessary to hunt for them when I am not the person I was then."
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Mr StClair-Armstrong has said 'I am not the person I was then' (Reform Party)In a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday evening, StClair-Armstrong said: "I do not and have never supported the BNP, particularly the nasty Nick Griffin. I posted it in a moment of frustration, the only person in the world who has ever done so." A Reform UK spokesperson told the BBC: “Mr St Clair-Armstrong has tendered his resignation as a member of Reform UK due to the revelation of unacceptable historic social media comments and we have accepted his resignation.”