Reform candidate rants that ‘Islam and Nazis are the same thing’ in unearthed footage
13 June 2024, 08:19 | Updated: 13 June 2024, 08:51
Reform UK candidate Steve Chilcott said ‘Islam and Nazis are the same thing’ during a public 2017 rant, LBC has found.
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A video of the father of one, who’s standing in the Ealing Southall constituency in West London, was posted online at the time, in which he also said Paris was “full of Islamic, immigrant, scum”.
LBC has also unearthed previously unseen footage, filmed by one of our reporters in 2018, of Mr Chilcott saying the “only reason” Islam was growing was because of a “lack of contraception”.
Reform’s leader Nigel Farage and chairman Richard Tice have publicly defended the party’s vetting process for candidates, but last month, Tice admitted to LBC that they rely on the media to do certain background checks for them.
Reform candidate rants that ‘Islam and Nazis are the same thing’ in unearthed footage
Steve Chilcott is understood to be a regular at Speakers Corner in Hyde Park - an area set aside in law for public speeches and debates, since the mid-1800s.
But the footage found by LBC shows Mr Chilcott has used the location for controversial rants relating to Islam.
In the YouTube video from 2017, he likened the religion to the Nazis, saying: “They both want to kill Jews.
“They both hate homosexuals, they both want to kill homosexuals.
“Islam; Nazis - they are the same thing”.
Steve Chilcott describes himself as being a “very strong advocate for free speech” having moved his political support from the Lib Dems, to Labour, to UKIP, the Brexit Party and now Reform.
Earlier this year he stood for Reform UK in the London Assembly elections and is now one of 609 candidates the party has put forward in the General Election.
Muslims account for around a fifth of the population in the constituency Mr Chilcott is standing in.
This week, Reform has already been forced to defend another candidate who said Britain should have “taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality”.
A party spokesperson told the BBC the view was not an endorsement but was “probably true” and “shared by the vast majority of the British establishment including the BBC of its day”.
While Ian Gribbon said his grandparents were “Russian Jews fleeing persecution” and his comments were taken out of context.
Questions had been raised last month about the level of background checks done on Reform candidates, with just two weeks to secure enough people to stand for the party.
Mr Tice told LBC a vetting company was doing checks for them but added that they rely on the media and other scrutinisers to do it for them.
He told us: “The great thing is that lots of the press are doing that job for us. It's a huge job.
“We’ve got a vetting company but one of the things it relies on is actually people telling the truth.
“And the vetting is a bit like an MOT, it’s valid on the day that you pass but if someone then writes or says something daft one week later, or a year later, then you’ve got to deal with it.
“But I repeat, we will deal with people who behave inappropriately better and faster than any of the parties who try to kick the can down the road.”
LBC has contacted Steve Chilcott and Reform UK for comment.
