Who is Paul Nuttall? Reform’s new vice chairman has a history of dodgy claims and dubious beliefs

Reform UK’s new vice chairman, Paul Nuttall, has an interesting and illustrious past.

Not only did he serve as UKIP leader (from November 2016 to June 2017) and as a MEP (from July 2009 to July 2019), but he also played as a professional footballer, obtained a PhD in history, and served on the board of a charity.

Or did he? In late 2016 and early 2017, a series of revelations showed that Nuttall’s own website, as well as a LinkedIn account under his name, carried wildly false claims about the now Reform vice chairman’s past… 

A professional footballer

Two blog posts on Nuttall’s website in 2010 referred to him as a “former professional footballer” at Tranmere Rovers.

As it turned out, however, that wasn’t exactly true. When MailOnline asked the club, in November 2016, whether Nuttall had ever played professionally for the team, it responded emphatically: “Definitely not.”

Not to worry though. The error wasn’t apparently Nuttall’s – despite the fact it appeared on his own website – and was duly blamed on a “press officer”.

The disappearing doctorate

As well as being an athlete, Nuttall completed a PhD in history at Liverpool Hope University in 2004, according to a LinkedIn account under his name. 

This caused bafflement at Liverpool Hope University, given it only obtained the authority to award PhDs five years later, in 2009.

After the Mail on Sunday started making enquiries in early December 2016, the educational achievement was taken down from the LinkedIn profile. 

This time, however, the mysterious “press officer” wasn’t at fault. Rather, a spokesperson for Nuttall pointed the finger at an “over-enthusiastic researcher”. 

His “close friends” died in the Hillsborough tragedy

In two press releases posted on his website, one in 2011 and the other in 2012, it was claimed that Nuttall lost “close friends” in the Hillsborough tragedy.

But asked about the claim in a radio interview in February 2017, Nuttall explained that, in fact, he didn’t “lose anyone who was a close personal friend” in the 1989 disaster.

A press officer took the blame.

A charity board member

“I was very impressed by my visit to the NWTC [North West Training Council]… they are doing a first-class job and I am thrilled at the honour of being a board member,” Nuttall was quoted as saying on his website in September 2009. 

In February 2017, however, the Guardian reported that Paul Musa – chief executive of the training charity – had clarified: “Mr Nuttall was never invited to become a board member of the NWTC as this would need to be a directive of the NWTC board who he never met.”

But credit where credit’s due, this time Nuttall didn’t try to shift the blame. In fact, a UKIP spokesperson simply wouldn’t comment on the claims. 

The house in Stoke

Again in February 2017, it was revealed that nomination papers submitted for a parliamentary by-election in the Stoke Central constituency declared Nuttall was living in a property he had yet to move into. 

While his nomination papers gave his address as a house near the city centre, when Channel 4 News paid it a visit, it seemed to be empty, although a spokesperson for Nuttall claimed he was in the process of moving in.

This was potentially serious – as providing false information on a nomination paper is an offence under the Representation of the People Act (1983) – but, by February 2018, the police determined that there was “insufficient evidence” to show a criminal offence had been committed.

The David Irving citation

With so many claims made about (although, of course, not by…) Nuttall having turned out to be false, on 25 February 2017 the Guardian published an interesting anecdote from the historian David Renton, who was one of Nuttall’s lecturers at Edge Hill college in Lancashire. 

Back in 1999, when Nuttall was in his early 20s, Renton asked his undergraduate students to write an essay on the causes of the Holocaust. 

According to Renton, in his essay Nuttall suggested there was an argument to be made that Jewish people had brought the Holocaust upon themselves and cited the Holocaust denier David Irving. 

When Renton sat down with Nuttall to discuss why it wasn’t appropriate to reference Irving, Nuttall claimed that he was not, in fact, responsible for the citations. His girlfriend had found them on the internet.

Dubious views

His (or perhaps his girlfriend’s…) youthful interest in David Irving isn’t the only example of Nuttall having dubious beliefs. The now Reform deputy chair has also propagated conspiracy theories about global warming, expressed anti-Muslim views, and criticised “the very existence” of the NHS.

In 2010, for instance, Nuttall – who calls himself a global warming “sceptic” – called Al Gore’s film about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, a “blatant piece of propaganda”. In an article on his website, Nuttall wrote:

“I sympathise with the resignation of renowned Professor Harold Lewis, who has called global warming ‘a money led scam’… Figures used to ‘support’ the idea of climate change have been shown to be false and manipulated… As a sceptic in regard to climate change, I think we all need to be assured about the credibility and motivation of scientists onboard the global warming wagon.”

In another article, on 23 September 2015, the now Reform deputy chair voiced Islamophobic views, writing of a Muslim plot to “conquer” Europe:

“We are importing Muslims into Europe in Biblical proportions… We only have to listen to the chilling words of Sheikh Muhammad Ayed to understand how dangerous this is. He recently said in a speech at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem that Muslim immigrants should breed with the Europeans to ‘conquer their countries’. And we are encouraging this through our bleeding liberal hearts.”

Like Farage, Nuttall’s views on the NHS have also found himself out of step with most British people. In 2014, he posted on his website: “I would argue that the very existence of the NHS stifles competition, and as competition drives quality and choice, innovation and improvements are restricted. Therefore, I believe, as long as the NHS is the ‘sacred cow’ of British politics, the longer the British people will suffer a second-rate health service.” 

“Professionalisation”

While Reform and its leader Nigel Farage like to crow that the party is undergoing “professionalisation”, the appointment of someone with such a strong track record of dubious beliefs and dodgy claims shows that Reform still has a very long way to go.