TL;DR:
Stephen McNamara is transphobic and David McNabb is racist.
Reform UK doubles-down on it’s opposition towards Net Zero policies.
Comments include (spoilering for distressing content, just in case):
spoiler
McNamara branded three Scottish equalities organisations as “tax payer funded peadophile (sic) services.”
A response to a 2023 tweet from LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall said: “Time to ‘Stonewall’ the absurdity that being trans is normal. It’s not. You’re all mentall (sic) ill and need psychiatric treatment.”
David McNabb said first minister Humza Yousaf should not be able to hold a rugby trophy because he is “more Pakistani than Scottish.”
McNabb’s account also shared a video from the far right commentator, Katie Hopkins, which accused the UK legal system of treating fellow far right activists unfairly.
Suspended candidates included Stephen McNamara, who was selected as the candidate for Kilmarnock and Louden, and David McNabb, the party’s candidate for Mid Dunbartonshire.
A Reform UK spokesperson said: “The party has launched an immediate investigation into Mr’s McNabb and McNamara who have been suspended pending the result of that investigation.”
Linked article details public comments made by both these suspended candidates, as well as highlighting some other candidates who are not being investigated.
Reform is not investigating candidates with links to climate change denial groups, or who have made comments denying climate change. These candidates include:
- Kenneth Morton, the candidate for Angus and Perthshire Glens.
- Martyn Greene. who is Reform UK’s Scotland organiser.
A Reform UK spokesperson said: “Reform Scotland is proud to oppose the calamity that are the Net Zero policies."
My first thought was “wow those comments must be shockingly bad if even Reform UK is suspending/investigating them”.
They absolutely are awful and embarrassing comments. But they’re also comments I would fully expect a Reform UK candidate/supporter to make. Therefore I’m pretty surprised Reform UK is investigating them in the first place. Perhaps it’s because they said the quiet bit out loud?
They’re a right-wing populist and Eurosceptic party after all, so of course they’re gonna attract racists and transphobes.
Exactly. Reform UK needs to decide whether saying awful racist and transphobic shit is a feature or a bug.
Thinking it is as feature. Saying it a bug.
Really no different from the tories. They want folks that think it to vote. But don’t want sane people to refuse to vote for them.
Tin foil hat time, all of the Reform candidates have these skeletons in their closets but Reform have told the Tories that they can pay to have candidates investigated in the seats where the Tories still think they can get in.
Polls suggest the Tories will get wiped out in Scotland - I’m not sure Reform backing out of some seats will matter balanced against the Tory policies.
I mean, how many votes were they expecting north of the border anyway? It seems likely these candidates were expendable, so they could point at this and use it as evidence that they aren’t all appalling.
I was so confused I thought I was reading something wrong, but no, bigots suspending bigots, I’d say a broken clock and all that, but more likely there is a money trail to be followed that will provide the explanation…