NIGEL Farage’s Reform party are asking prospective election candidates if they have ever been members of terrorist groups, The National can reveal.
After a series of embarrassing revelations about candidates during the General Election, the party have tightened up their vetting procedures.
Applicants are asked if they have ever been a member of “a proscribed (banned) organisation”, with the party giving the British National Party as example, despite the party never having been banned.
Would-be candidates for next year's English council elections are charged £10 to go through the vetting process, which also asks whether applicants have been convicted of a criminal offence.
James McMurdock (below), the party’s MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, was jailed for repeatedly kicking his then-girlfriend outside a nightclub in 2006.
Before the full details of his crime were revealed, McMurdock downplayed the incident as a “teenage indiscretion”.
Applicants are also asked whether they have ever been declared bankrupt, as well as details of their main and “secondary” social media platforms.
They are further asked to disclose any “past or current issues in my background that may embarrass Reform UK or bring it into disrepute”.
Greens MSP Maggie Chapman (below) said: “The Brexit Party, UKIP and Reform have had a long and shameful history of attracting candidates and activists with hateful and extreme views.
“If Reform has concerns that its potential candidates hold similar extreme views or connections, it really needs to ask itself why so many people with such reprehensible and reactionary attitudes feel so comfortable joining and standing for such a party.”
The party suffered a string of revelations about its election candidates earlier this year.
At least 12 candidates were suspended from the party during this summer’s campaign, including Pete Addis who said “brown babies” were conceived through anal sex, while Aberdeenshire candidate Iris Leask called for the human race to be “obliterated”.
Their candidate in Orkney and Shetland, Robert Smith, called for Nicola Sturgeon to be shot and said the Covid vaccine was “for poofs”.
After the revelations, Farage (below) said he would report vetting.com to the police for what he said were its failures to pick up offensive social media posts.
He said Reform had been the victim of an “establishment stitch-up” and said Colin Bloom, the firm’s owner, had “deep links to the Tory party”.
Bloom had previously served as a faith engagement advisor for Boris Johnson.
The company denied it had stitched up Reform and said it did not have time to properly scrutinise all of the party’s 609 candidates.
Reform did not respond to a request for comment.
