What has Reform's Robert Kenyon said in the past on social media?
Nigel Farage defends Makerfield by-election candidate Robert Kenyon after he wrote comments about Carol Vorderman
Nigel Farage has defended Robert Kenyon, Reform's candidate for the Makerfield by-election, after sexist and anti-Brexit sentiment shared online by the aspiring MP came to light.
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The plumber and Wigan councillor has admitted making "crass" comments, which have been unearthed from a defunct rugby league forum and from a now-deleted Twitter account.
Mr Kenyon is taking on Labour's Andy Burnham and a wide field of other candidates for the Greater Manchester seat in a vote happening on June 18.
He told the BBC that he was not a "not a polished professional" when he made comments online, which include some made about women, Russia, and Brexit.
"There might have been a few crass comments that I've said," he said, adding that he "wouldn't make any crass comments now".
"Once you're being paid by the public purse to represent them, you've got a duty to behave in a certain way," he said.
Asked by the Manchester Evening News whether he wanted to take the opportunity to apologise, he said: “I think I’ve addressed the issue.”
He added: “No offence was meant, and it’s not something I’d do now.”
Reform leader Mr Farage was asked about the comments during a press conference held in the Makerfield constituency, and dismissed them as “a few laddish things”.
He told reporters: “These comments were posted a decade ago. They’ve been taken wildly out of context, but they’re the sort of comments that you won’t necessarily get if you’re an Oxford-educated career politician living in a nice postcode in London.”
Mr Farage added: “But I tell you what, they are the kind of comments you’ll hear in every pub in the country every evening, and we should be unapologetic that Rob is an ordinary bloke who’s carved quite a career for himself, had the guts to set up a business, served as an army reservist, is a patriot, likes his rugby, likes the odd pint, and said a few laddish things on social media 10 years ago.
"Do you know what I’d say to that? I’d say, so what?”
What did Robert Kenyon say?
Supporting an offensive post made about Carol Vorderman
Mr Kenyon used a now-deleted X account to support an offensive post about Welsh broadcaster Carol Vorderman.
Messages published by campaign group Hope Not Hate showed that Mr Kenyon responded on Christmas Eve 2021 to another person’s post including graphic sexual language about the presenter.
Alongside a thumbs up and a laughing emoji, the plumber wrote: “He’s only saying what we’re all thinking.”
This particularly sexually explicit remark about conducting sex acts on the presenter was tweeted on her birthday.
Vorderman has demanded an apology from Mr Kenyon, who she branded “cowardly”.
Offensive joke about female rugby players
A screengrab shared by Vorderman shows a comment reading: "If it's not t*** and a**** or rugby, it's politics".
Sky Sports Rugby League blocked the account.
Pro-Russia comments
Mr Kenyon was found by the Telegraph to have compared Russia's invasion of the Ukrainian Crimea in 2014 to Britain's actions over the Falklands in the 1980s.
He wrote: "Russia are well within their rights to do what they have done, as we did with the Falklands. However, will Latvia be next?”
On remarks regarding Crimea, a Reform spokesman said: “At no point did Rob explicitly support or endorse Russia’s actions in Crimea.
"These comments were made before he was in politics and during a time when the British Prime Minister was still having meetings with Vladimir Putin.
"Rob is unequivocally opposed to Russia’s illegal and brutal invasion of Ukraine."
Anti-abortion comments
Also online, the Observer found that Mr Kenyon had called abortion a “cowardly act of murdering a defenceless baby".
“Don’t dole out the ‘what if someone is raped by their brother’ arguement [sic],” he wrote in 2022.
“Life begins at conception. [...] They don’t want babies? Use contreception! [sic]”
He also called left-wing opinions "evil" in advocating abortion, and called Labour “the party for trannys”.
Comparing the Australian government to Nazism
Amid the pandemic, Mr Kenyon said that Australia had gone “full Nazi” with its lockdown restrictions and suggested that the vaccine was “gene therapy”.
Anti-Brexit comments
Comments from a rugby league forum found that after the 2016 referendum, Mr Kenyon had said Brexit would be bad for the economy and was promoted by those who "peddled the nationalistic pish".
In another forum, he was seen by the Telegraph to have written: “So anyone who thinks I love Trump, voted Brexit, read the Daily Mail, live in the 1950s, a Tory and 103 is wrong. I’m none of the above.”
Mr Farage was one of the loudest anti-EU voices and Brexit is very much a backbone of Reform's policy.
Mr Kenyon told the BBC that he had voted for Brexit and that he had "no recollection of saying that" he had not.
He told LBC via Reform’s media team: “These comments were made immediately after the referendum vote, nearly a decade ago and long before I entered politics."