Early on Thursday 21 May, the Green Party of England and Wales nominated Chris Kennedy as their candidate in the Makerfield by-election. Later that day, Kennedy dropped out of the race for family reasons. Another possible explanation, later reported by Timeswas that he had shared posts on Facebook describing the recent anti-Semitic attacks in Golders Green as a “false flag”. Oh dear.
On the one hand, this was embarrassing; on the other hand, however, the Greens moved quickly to remove a potentially problematic candidate and draw a line. Far more shameful, of course, is the fact that there is Reform in the United Kingdom NO replaced her candidate. Multiple newspapers and the campaign group Hope Not Hate have all been able to claim that large numbers are simply tracking Robert Kenyon’s social media history. This is not a good sign.
Many of the most outrageous comments from the self-proclaimed “man in the white van” have to do with his views on gender: the third wave, you’ll be shocked to learn, has moved past him. Women, Kenyon has said, cannot “refer, drive or give instructions”, while those who present rugby on TV are “just there to tick a box”. Meanwhile, those who have terminated their pregnancies, have done so for “vanity purposes” and thus can “kidnap anyone they want”. If Kenyon has thought about the role of their partners in this process, those thoughts have not yet been made in the national press.
Perhaps most offensive was his response to a sexually explicit comment about Carol Vorderman that someone posted in 2021, and which I absolutely will not repeat in Orwell’s magazine. In a comment – and indeed an account – that has since been deleted, Kenyon responded with the words: “He’s just saying what we’re all thinking.” (We weren’t.) “I’m sexist, sorry, but I am,” he wrote elsewhere. At least we can’t take it hypocritically.
Subscribe to the New Statesman for £1 a week
Is this it? No, it’s not even close: to The Huffington Post titled an article “Nine of the most shocking comments revealed by Reform candidate Makerfield”, and that’s not a good sign either. Other comments included those objectifying English women and finding them depressed compared to their continental peers (the former, apparently, “just walking around with their fat bellies and weird shapes pushing a pram at 16 in PJs”); some homophobic rhetoric so stuck in the 80s that she’s about to call for her retirement; and some transphobia which, worryingly, may be more in keeping with the spirit of the age. He has said things that sound anti-vaxx, and things that seemed to support Russia’s right to occupy Crimea. He also, surprisingly, appeared to blame Hillary Clinton for the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing.
Official lines of defense have included “almost 20 years ago”, “little more than locker room banter” and “Cllr Kenyon is entitled to his personal views on abortion”. Here’s a headline from last Thursday Manchester Evening News: “The white van of reform, Robert Kenyon, has a few things to say – sorry that’s not one of them.”
Perhaps the reason Reforma remains so committed to this obligation is that the positives of the candidate, a local councilor and outspoken plumber, seem to far outweigh the negatives. Maybe replacing him just seemed like too much trouble. Or maybe it’s that you don’t want to give the other party the satisfaction. (Another line of defense: “We just don’t care about establishment-hit jobs.”)
This may turn out to be a mistake. Makerfield feels like an extremely winnable seat for Nigel Farage’s party: if it can win here and stop Labour’s most popular potential leader from returning to parliament in the process, it’s hard to see how the government escapes the resulting mess. To put it bluntly, however, the misogynistic vote may not be enough to get Kenyon over the line – least of all when split with the even worse Restoration party, for which support, according to one poll, could be as low as 7 percent.
The whole affair may also serve as a useful reminder to Labour. The leadership may prefer to picture Reform and the Greens as equal and opposite forces combining simplicity, populism and lack of seriousness; both parties clearly have vetting procedures that let poor candidates with controversial views and social media histories pass. However, when problems were noticed, the Greens moved to replace their candidate, while Reform has doubled down.
Both could be equal threats to the Labor Party. But they are by no means the same.
(Further reading: Labor’s war of words)
Content from our partners
