We reveal that Reform candidates in Essex include a white supremacist, a Tommy Robinson fan who wants to deport Muslims, someone who said “muslims burning poppies… should be shot”, and a conspiracy theorist who has used an antisemitic trope.
Reform UK has selected a myriad of unsuitable candidates for the local elections on 7 May, including racists, Restore Britain supporters, Tommy Robinson fans, conspiracy theorists, and individuals who were once associated with the fascist British National Party.
The situation is no different in Essex. A joint investigation by HOPE not hate and the Daily Mirror reveals that a Reform candidate in the county is a white supremacist who has made vile comments about black people and Muslims.
Stuart Prior – who is standing for Reform in Rayleigh West (for Essex County Council) and Sweyne Park & Grange (for Rochford District Council) – proffered his extreme views on a X (formerly Twitter) account which appears to have been deleted in February. Together with the Mirror, we have identified this deleted account as having belonged to Prior and located posts from it archived online.
In posts on X in November 2025, Prior described white people as “the master race” and indulged in racist pseudoscience, by suggesting that white people have “larger brains” and thus greater intelligence.
In other posts, also from last year, Prior said “Muslims are dirt”, wrote that “Muslims are awful, globally” and declared: “There cannot be a genocide against Muslims. It’s only ever self defence against those rats.”
Additionally, the Reform candidate has used a highly offensive racist slur, said black people should be “segregated”, asked why “black folk bitch about” the slave trade, and posted a graphic which read: “Black Privilege: The ability to break any law in society and still remain the victim”. In response to a post about someone “playing the victim”, Prior said: “Sounds like every blackperson [sic] in England.”
He also wrote that a video of people doing blackface was “hilarious”, adding that “they can black up if they want”, and said: “Slavery was ended because the Africans were shit workers.”
Prior has a disturbingly dismissive attitude towards human suffering. On 4 October, for instance, he wrote, “Clearly a wrongun [sic]. Good job he’s dead,” after British teenager Marcus Fakana – who had been jailed in Dubai for having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old – died in a car crash.
On 21 September, he responded, “No one cares. Die,” to a post about plastic bags having to be used instead of nappies for babies in Gaza; on 27 October, he wrote, “good.reap it,” in response to a post by the MP Zarah Sultana about a Sikh woman and woman of Punjabi heritage being raped; and on 1 February this year, he described a video of a Palestinian man searching for his child in rubble as “hilarious”.
After a stabbing by a British citizen on a train in Cambridgeshire, Prior said on 2 November: “If this was caused by another third world invader then this country needs a purge. From North to South and from East to West.”
While Prior’s views are especially horrendous, he isn’t the only Reform candidate in Essex who has made concerning posts online. HOPE not hate can also expose nine others who, between them, have voiced hateful views about Muslims, expressed support for the serial criminal Stephen Lennon (aka Tommy Robinson), and peddled dangerous conspiracy theories.
Those candidates are:
Eileen McManus, one of Reform’s candidates for Harlow District Council in Essex, is a Tommy Robinson fan who wants to deport Muslims.
Using X in May 2025, she responded, “Please can you all leave,” to a post which read: “Parliament are set to debate banning halal slaughter in the UK. The Muslim Council of Britain warns this would force many Muslims to leave the country. Should Halal slaughter be banned?” The following month she wrote, “Yes,” in response to a post which asked: “Are we still 100% certain we want to deport Muslims?”
She also said that “we have to stand up and get ruthless” in response to a post which asked whether we “need Islam out of the UK”; claimed “we have Muslim no go areas”; and pronounced that “the Muslim community… rule our country”.
Additionally, McManus has responded in enthusiastic terms to numerous posts by and about Tommy Robinson. She has said, for instance, that the anti-Muslim extremist “uncovered truths that were hidden for years and is vilified for it”, called for people to help “crowd fund him”, and responded to a post asking whether Enoch Powell, the late politician most well-known for his racist 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech, was right, by commenting: “Yes and so was TRobinson 2 decades ago”.
In November 2024 – while Robinson was in jail for contempt of court after repeating false claims about a Syrian refugee – McManus wrote: “Free Tommy!! He shouldn’t be in prison”.
Reform has selected Jeff Bray as its candidate for Tendring Rural East, despite the fact he has previously been exposed for hateful social media posts about Muslims.
Back in 2017, when Bray was a potential UKIP parliamentary candidate for Clacton, we reported that he had said on Facebook: “just read a site that says muslims burning poppys [sic] is ‘disrespectful’ bollocks !!disrespectful, my arse. scum, if I decicrated [sic] muslim culture in iran [sic] i would be shot. in the interest of equality, they should be shot here. not all muslims are terrerists, but all terrerists are muslims [sic].”
At the time, UKIP dropped Bray as a potential candidate. What’s changed?
Shirley Ann McGee is Reform’s candidate in Passmores for Harlow District Council. Using X on 2 February 2025 she said “Yes” to a post which asked whether Tommy Robinson “is a political prisoner and should be released from prison IMMEDIATELY”.
In September 2025, she also posted: “BLACK Privilege: breaking laws, disrespectful and racist but still playing the victim”.
Adrian Gasser, Reform’s candidate in Constable, appears to be another supporter of Tommy Robinson.
As well as having shared several videos of the serial criminal on Facebook and attended Tommy Robinson marches in London, Gasser posted a graphic which said of Robinson: “If I am lying then why are they trying to silence me?”
On X/Twitter, Reform’s candidate for Laindon Town, Krupa Jeevan Kollabathula, appeared to use an antisemitic trope in November 2016, referring to “Jews(selfish)”. The post Kollabathula was responding to has since been deleted, making the meaning of his comment, in which he said “the Germans are proud of his relentlessness,” unclear.
He has additionally voiced conspiracy theories regarding the 9/11 terrorist attack, writing that “fake 9/11 to get into Afghanistan and continue staying in Iraq was GBush plan” and saying: “Do not be mesmerised by dates even calling it 9/11 was planned”.
Paul Godfrey – who is standing in Brentwood South (for Essex County Council) and Hutton East (for Brentwood Borough Council) – is yet another conspiracy theorist in Reform’s ranks.
Posts shared by Godfrey on X include one which referred to the “5 Stages of Pilling”. According to this post, while at the first stage people believe “Covid is real… The West is exceptional. Russian man bad,” by the final stage they reach: “Sovereignty, Self reliance… Purpose. Being human. Love. Wellbeing. WINNING!” Another graphic promoted by Godfrey referred to the “New World Order” – a conspiracy theory which posits that elites are secretly colluding to produce a totalitarian world government.
Moreover, in March 2022 he referred to the “#CovidCon” and, in December 2021, wrote in response to a post about the Omicron variant of Covid-19: “Scientists have been wrong on pretty much every prediction since March 2020, and not just by a small margin. It’s almost as if they were being asked to make predictions based on policy that has already been agreed”.
Zoe Hockton, who is standing in Castledon & Crouch for both Basildon Borough and Essex County Council, has promoted Islamophobic content on X.
Posts shared by Hockton include one declaring that “the UK is going to become an Islamic caliphate” and another which read: “I think we should have bacon month every year to coincide with ramadan. All true Brits to worship the sacred butty.”
Philip Hoy, standing for Reform in Stansted, has promoted conspiracy theories regarding climate change. In June 2025, for instance, he wrote, “Don’t read this if the truth hurts,” above a post which said that “the ‘Climate Crisis’ is another globalist scam to try [to] enslave every man, woman and child”.
In 2015, he posted an email sent to him, which he described as “worth a read”. The email said: “we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty, due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride… What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe.”
Russell Quirk, Reform’s candidate for Brentwood Hutton, has also peddled conspiracy theories regarding climate change. On 3 June 2025, for instance, he wrote: “Governments love to scare us. Covid, climate change, war… authoritarians believe that if they promote an air of doom we’ll lean into government to ‘protect us’. And it’s easier to tax us more.”
Similarly, in January last year, he said that “the left… blame climate change as their excuse of convenience so that they can… tax you more and control you whilst staying in power as the saviours of sustainability. Don’t be fooled by this sinister, political sleight of hand.”
Ahead of this year’s local elections, Reform’s home affairs spokesman Zia Yusuf pronounced that the party has “the best vetting in the country”. Not many would agree.
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