“The Queen’s a fraud”: Reform UK Senedd candidate’s dangerous conspiracy theories

Reform UK Senedd candidate Emma Clatworthy called the late Queen “a fraud” who needs to be overthrown, claimed that “the government are actors”, and suggested people only took the Covid vaccine as they were “brainwashed and programmed”.

Reform UK’s campaign in Wales hasn’t got off to a great start.

Within just a week, three out of the six candidates originally announced by Reform for the constituency covering Bridgend and the Vale of Glamorgan dropped out and had to be replaced. One, Derek Morgan, stood down for unspecified personal reasons, another, Owain Clatworthy, left in dismay at the selection process, while a third, Corey Edwards, stepped aside after a photograph emerged of him performing a Nazi salute. 

HOPE not hate can reveal that another Reform candidate, Emma Clatworthy, standing in the same constituency, has peddled bizarre conspiracy theories on the messaging app Telegram.

In a particularly peculiar post on 5 February 2021, after declaring that “the government are actors” and “the whole system needs to be taken down and rebuilt”, Clatworthy wrote: “The Monarch needs to go she’s not our Queen never has been she’s a fraud, they’re all German decent [sic]… she’s not swearing to represent us the people, she’s swearing to trade off of us.”

Later in the Telegram message, she wrote that “we need to learn the correct processes to over throw the monarch” and explained that what “needs to happen is a coordinated approach, putting the right people in the right places, such as our own Judge’s [sic], Lawyers, Sheriff, Media platforms, Doctors, Experts, and people to back them up”. 

In another post, just over an hour later, Clatworthy detailed: “The problem we have is people have been brainwashed and programmed since they started school, every thing around us is programming us, so we accept this as norm, people are even rushing to get a vaccine that can kill them just to go back to the ‘norm’.”

Later that month, she also suggested creating communities outside of mainstream society in order to escape the lives of vaccinated “slaves” living in cities.

In other posts, she has called for people to “grow our own empire against the evil controlling globalists”, said that “we need to take the head off of their main weapon… the corrupt main media”, and shared the text of a friend’s Facebook post which declared that “we live in a slave system, trying to earn money to support a ponzi scheme”.

She has also promoted medical conspiracy theories; in one Telegram message, for instance, she claimed that “you can’t catch a virus” and declared that “Flu shots don’t prevent flu they give you the flu… it’s all big pharma lies and business”.

Clatworthy isn’t the only example of a Reform UK Senedd candidate having promoted dangerous views online. Those standing for the party in other Welsh constituencies have shared far-right content and conspiracy theories on social media.

Chris Brooke, for instance, one of the party’s candidates in Carmarthenshire, has responded enthusiastically to posts by the anti-Muslim extremist Tommy Robinson, while Richard Pendry, standing in a new constituency in north Wales, has said Robinson “was right all along” and questioned why “the establishment” are “so frightened” by him.

Meanwhile, Glenda Davies – up for election in Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly and Rhymney – has declared there’s “no link between CO2 and temperatures” and claimed the “obsession with Carbon has little to do with the environment and more a tool used by the left to impoverish and destroy developed countries.”

Last month, Reform’s home affairs spokesman, Zia Yusuf, claimed the party has “the best vetting in the country”. We’re not so sure.