Reform UK candidate resigns after ‘unacceptable historic social media comments’
Grant StClair-Armstrong was contesting from North-West-Essex (Reform Party)
Grant StClair-Armstrong, Reform UK’s candidate, has resigned after some of his old posts were discovered in which he asked people to vote for the far-right British National Party (BNP).
Mr StClair-Armstrong, 71, who was supposed to contest against business secretary Kemi Badenoch in North West Essex, has denied supporting the BNP.
In an old post in 2010, the reform candidate allegedly wrote “Vote for BNP”, lamenting the state of the UK.
“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!” he wrote, in remarks first reported by The Times.
A spokesperson for Reform confirmed in a statement to the paper that the North West Essex candidate resigned from their party due to the revelation of “unacceptable historic social media comments”.
“We have accepted his resignation.”
In a post on X on Sunday evening, Mr 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.”
The remarks were unearthed from the archives of a blog called Joli Triste, which has since been changed. The archive also allegedly showed racial slurs, including a joke about “female hormones”.
He told the BBC that the comments were posted sometime between 2004 and 2007 and he was an “angry man” at the time. In his remarks to The Times he said he was going through a tough phase, but has “cleaned up his act” since then.
“I don’t have this stuff on my website any more … I removed all that stuff and made the website respectable,” he told The Times.
“It was at a time when I was feeling particularly hard done by, I’d been shafted by a lot of people. I cleaned up my act a long, long time ago.”
About his support for BNP, he told The Times that he believes they’re a “disgusting party”.
“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 said.
Mr StClair-Armstrong said he decided to resign because he did not “see any alternative”.
However, his name will still appear on the ballot as the names of the candidates can not be changed now. But if we wins, he will win as an independent candidate.