Joshua Bonehill-Paine, a former neo-Nazi activist who was jailed in 2015 for antisemitic remarks, has been selected as a candidate for the Conservative Party. Bonehill-Paine stated that his previous views were "indefensible" and that he decided to reform them in prison after hearing about the murder of Labour MP Jo Cox in 2016. "I felt an enormous sense of emotion - of grief and of anger that this lady had been murdered by a far-right extremist," he said. "This was a mother, a wife, who had been viciously murdered in cold blood and I started to question why it was that I was supporting a right-wing ideology."
Bonehill-Paine noted that upon his release from prison in 2018, he received support from members of his local community who acknowledged his desire to change his life. He subsequently undertook a de-radicalisation program and now delivers counter-extremism sessions across the UK.