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Nigel Farage has accused Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch of “weakness and bad judgment” after she failed to cut ties with former neo-Nazi activist Joshua Bonehill-Paine. He insisted: “If I’d been confronted with a candidate like that, he’d have been axed in 30 seconds.” Mr Bonehill-Paine was convicted of racially harassing a Jewish former MP in 2016, while already serving a separate jail sentence for sharing antisemitic posts. Mrs Badenoch initially defended the decision to select him as a Conservative council candidate, saying he had been rehabilitated and her party “believes in second chances”.

He has now withdrawn from next year’s local elections, but Mrs Badenoch gave him a new role as an adviser to her party’s culture and integration commission. The Reform UK leader said every party had candidates who “slip through the net” because they failed to reveal full details about their past. He said: “It’s what you do when you find out that their behaviour has been genuinely heinous, and this is one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen.

“This guy went to prison. And the hounding of a Labour member of Parliament, I mean, this is not funny.

“When I see a really bad case of repeated bad behaviour, I immediately disavow them and say they’re not standing officially for us as a party.”

Slamming Mrs Badenoch, he said: “She’s shown her judgment is not sound. She’s shown she’s prepared to fight for causes that are hopeless and then in the end have to u-turn.”

Mr Farage also questioned whether there was a financial arrangement between the Conservatives and Bonehill-Paine, who produced satirical political videos on his Crewkerne Gazette social media channel which were often supportive of Mrs Badenoch.

“So I don’t know what the relationship between this guy and the Conservative Party is. But I’m beginning to ask myself some questions about it.

“Was he employed by the Conservative Party? Is he still employed? I don’t know. I’m not casting any accusations, but there’s something we don’t know.”

Labour peer Baroness Luciana Berger, the ex-MP victimised by Mr Bonehill-Paine, described the Conservative Party’s decision to give him an advisory role as an “insult”.

A Conservative Party source highlighted Nigel Farage’s decision to create a by-election in his Clacton constituency following reports about a £5 million gift. The source said: “Nigel Farage wants to talk about judgement? He took £5 million from a crypto billionaire and didn’t declare it, now he’s fighting a pointless by-election against a bin.

“One of his closest advisers served 8 months in prison for money laundering and is still not being honest about the money he’s given Reform. The police are investigating payments to Reform by a company controlled by the party’s deputy leader, Richard Tice, and donations received by their Treasury spokesman Robert Jenrick. Reform are so deep in sleaze they can barely see the horizon.”