LONDON: Two more candidates for the UK’s upcoming general election from right-wing party Reform UK have been dropped after they were found to have made racist, offensive and anti-Muslim remarks.
Pete Addis, a candidate for the South Shropshire constituency, was suspended after comments he made online were uncovered by the Mail on Sunday newspaper in which he referred to “brown babies.”
The party also removed Amodio Amato from the list of candidates in the Stevenage constituency after he said that London was an “Islamic State” and that there would be “a Muslim army run by Sadiq Khan.”
A party spokesman said in a statement: “Amodio Amato and Pete Addis have been removed from their candidature with immediate effect, for comments that clearly breach any basic idea of decency.”
Addis, who also called for renowned naturalist and broadcaster David Attenborough to be “killed off,” told the Mail on Sunday he “obviously” regretted the remarks he made, arguing they had been made as “a joke.”
The removal of Addis and Amato comes just days after two other Reform UK candidates were dropped for anti-Muslim comments.
Jonathan Kay was found by anti-racism group Hope Not Hate to have tweeted in 2019 that Muslims could “never coexist with others” and should face deportation from the UK, while also claiming that Africans had IQs “among the lowest in the world.”
Mick Greenhough also posted to X (formerly Twitter) last year that the British government should “remove Muslims from our territory” and in 2019 he said Ashkenazi Jews were a “problem” and had “caused the world massive misery.”
Hope Not Hate said in a statement that both candidates, who were removed from candidacy on Wednesday, were “wildly unsuitable for public office.”
Following the suspension of Kay and Greenhough, Reform UK said: “We want to make it crystal clear that while we defend our candidates’ right to freedom of speech vigorously, we act fast when we find that individuals’ statements’ fall beneath our standards.
“Labour and the Conservatives also have candidates that make statements that fall below acceptable standards, but we move faster than others in acting decisively.”
