Deborah Phillips (Prince/Ishkanian)

Archive Conservator ACR, retired. Seeker after aesthetic perfection and true friends, while restoring ancient family tenement. Paramountly; proud wife of Ed.

[Vodka & Seledka 🇬🇧 @seledka_vodka]

Reform are woke snowflakes.

[Crewkerne Man @CrewkerneMan]

I don’t think we should be deciding who can and cannot fight antisemitism. We should simply get on with fighting it.

The CST’s latest report laid bare the scale of the crisis. With a government doing far too little to confront it, it falls to the rest of us to speak out.

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

While I am sad that Joshua feels he won't be given the space to explain his position and represent his community, I am glad he is going to work with me and the party on tackling radicalisation as part of our Culture and Integration commission.

If we are going to stop extremism and antisemitism we are going to need help from those people who were part of the problem, but have now changed and are being part of the solution. Piling on them and trying to get them cancelled may be sport for other parties, but this is a different Conservative Party.

Sometimes there will be difficult judgement calls, but right now I know that we are the only party actively working to unite the country rather than one particular faction or other.

[JPUK @joe022020]

@KemiBadenoch may have made the risky choice with Crewkerne, who knows, the guy has no chance to prove himself in that role either way now.

She is sensible and works by the book enough to know what she is doing, and I trust her to make the right call. She has my backing.

[Vodka & Seledka 🇬🇧 @seledka_vodka]

I respect @CrewkerneMan's decision to bow out, and I absolutely reject the pile-on he had to deal with over the last 24 hours.

It's great to know he will continue contributing his lived experience to combat antisemitism. I think the Culture and Integration Commission has an inordinate amount of work to do - and the work that it WILL do.

[LUKE HILLERY @Luke_Hillery94]

Must say it was a true honour to meet @KemiBadenoch this week, fierce and friendly as always. She is they way she is, just as you see her. #VoteConservative

[Deborah Phillips (Prince/Ishkanian) @Rabbitybee]

Petition to stop the early release from jail of PC Andrew Harper's killers - Sign the Petition! https://t.co/JDyFBooY7T via @Change

[Bernie @Artemisfornow]

My daughter Belle is known on X for her paintings of Jesus.

Today she has finished her oil painting of Anne Widdecombe.

I thought I’d share how remarkable and beautiful it is ❤️

[Vodka & Seledka 🇬🇧 @seledka_vodka]

I believe the controversy that has erupted around @CrewkerneMan has been presented almost entirely from one side. Predictably so.

A headline saying, “Tories select convicted neo-Nazi to stand in council election” will attract more clicks and outrage than, “Tories select former neo-Nazi turned counter-extremism advocate to stand in council election.”

Notice that I haven’t omitted the words “neo-Nazi” from the second headline. A balanced account should not conceal any part of the truth.

But if the objective is to mount a political attack on the Conservative Party, the second part of Joshua’s story becomes inconvenient: the years he has spent repudiating antisemitism, completing Prevent training and speaking about radicalisation and counter-extremism in schools, universities and professional settings.

Yes, this is a story about wrongdoing - serious, sustained and appalling wrongdoing. But it is also a story about atonement, or at least a genuine and verifiable attempt at it.

Like @KemiBadenoch, I am sceptical about rehabilitation. Saying that you have changed does not establish that you have changed. Remorse is easily declared and difficult to prove.

But I also believe in following the evidence wherever it leads. In Joshua’s case, that evidence does not consist merely of an apology issued when he wanted to become a candidate. His rejection of his former beliefs began years ago. Since leaving prison, he has invested a substantial part of his life in preventing other people from following the path he took.

That does not erase what he did. It does not undo the fear and suffering he caused. It does not oblige any of his victims to forgive him. Their anger and opposition to his candidacy are entirely understandable, and they should be heard with respect.

But forgiveness and rehabilitation are not the same thing. A victim is under no obligation to forgive. Society, however, must decide whether rehabilitation is ever possible and what it means when the evidence suggests it has occurred.

The criminal justice system cannot preach rehabilitation while imposing permanent civic death on everyone who has completed a sentence. A second chance is not a declaration that the first offence no longer matters. It means judging someone by their entire record - including what they have done since.

Nor has Joshua been handed public office. He has been selected to contest an election. His past is now known, his claims of rehabilitation can be scrutinised, and the people of Crewkerne South will ultimately decide whether to trust him.

There is a legitimate debate about whether rehabilitation should extend to elected office. Public office is a privilege, not a right, and candidates should meet a demanding standard. But that debate cannot be honest if it presents Joshua only as the man who entered prison and refuses to consider the man who emerged from it.

If his present conduct contradicts his professed transformation, judge him for that. If his account of his counter-extremism work is false or exaggerated, expose it. If he fails the people he seeks to represent, remove him at the ballot box.

But if no amount of remorse, punishment, changed conduct or sustained service can ever be enough, we should admit that we do not really believe in rehabilitation at all.

Nor is this principle a novel indulgence invented by Conservatives. In 2012, Labour knowingly selected Margaret Burke - a former neo-Nazi and ex-prisoner - to stand for Milton Keynes Council. She had run a pro-Hitler organisation, worn Nazi-style uniforms and organised racist activity. A black former councillor whom she had racially abused objected to her selection. Nevertheless, Labour concluded that her subsequent conduct had been “exemplary” and that it would be “wholly wrong” to deny her the possibility of becoming a candidate. She was elected, selected and elected again after her history became public, and served until 2018.

The two cases are not identical, and Joshua’s offences were more recent, more sustained and more directly targeted at identifiable victims. But the underlying principle is the same. Labour has previously accepted that even involvement in neo-Nazism need not impose permanent civic death where later conduct demonstrates genuine reform. Anyone who accepted that principle then, but declares it morally unthinkable now, should explain why the principle apparently changes with the colour of the candidate’s rosette.

I believe the evidence points to Joshua having fundamentally changed. His victims owe him no forgiveness, and the public owes him no office. But he is entitled to have the whole of his story told - and voters are entitled to judge the whole man, not only the worst chapter of his life.

Which is why I highly recommend everyone to read his piece in @ConHome and take it from there.

[Crewkerne Man @CrewkerneMan]

Kemi Badenoch is absolutely right, and this is why I chose the Conservatives over Reform. Second chances matter. People who genuinely change and give back to their communities should not be permanently cancelled.

Without rehabilitation, what is the alternative?

[JPUK @joe022020]

I'm going to trust Kemi's judge of character, after all she saw straight through Jenrick and Braverman.

[Charlie @CheckCharlieB]

The Conservative Party was once known as the Church Party. Christianity teaches repentance, forgiveness, and redemption. If we can no longer stand by those principles if we no longer believe that people who have acknowledged their wrongdoing, faced justice, and sought to rebuild their lives deserve the chance to do so then we've lost sight of our own foundations. If we abandon those values, perhaps it's time to ask what we stand for at all.

[John Cleese @JohnCleese]

I can understand that some are genuine refugees.

What I can't understand is why there are no old people, no women, and no children...among them

Why are they all fit young men ?

Are no old people, women or children genuine refugees?

[Charlie @CheckCharlieB]

I stand with Kemi and her judgement in allowing Joshua Bonehill to stand for the Conservatives.

People are free to disagree that's democracy. But I believe in rehabilitation, second chances where they have been earned, and in trusting our leader's judgement. We should judge people on who they are today.

[Annunziata Rees-Mogg @zatzi]

The Wets are getting the message👏👏.

The Conservative Party was infiltrated by wets (they prefer the term One Nation) who wanted to turn the Tory Party into the Lib Dems.

Kemi has made it clear their hostile takeover has failed.

Onwards and upwards without the entryists.

I have no doubt they’ll feel right at home in the Lib Dems.

[Vodka & Seledka 🇬🇧 @seledka_vodka]

Precisely:

[Deborah Phillips (Prince/Ishkanian) @Rabbitybee]

@CrewkerneMan Good Luck, hope you can test this soon.

[Crewkerne Man @CrewkerneMan]

BIG NEWS! I’m proud to be selected as the official Conservative candidate for Crewkerne South in Somerset.

The Liberal Democrats have failed our roads, shops and SEND families. No more decline, no more excuses. Local people first!

[Sharron Davies HoL MBE @sharrond62]

Miss those days… days of much simpler pleasures (& a more mobile population, living in the moment).

[JPUK @joe022020]

Seems I am so annoying that I managed to get blocked by Arron Banks and Terry Christian. 🤔