Northants Reform candidate posts offensive comment about Grenfell survivors and jokes about being KKK member

Sexist and racist historic tweets by Ronald Firman have resurfaced

By Sarah Ward

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Offensive posts from Ronald Firman’s past have resurfaced.

A Northants Reform UK candidate has posted sexist and racist tweets, including offensive remarks about Grenfell survivors and suggesting a refugee should be thrown out of a plane.

Ronald Firman, who wants to be elected to West Northamptonshire Council to represent the Hunsbury ward, made a series of offensive tweets on his X account. The tweets date back to 2017 but are still live on a seemingly redundant account. The national party has declined to comment.

Under a Sky News X post about Grenfell survivors being offered permanent residency he posted:

‘You’ve got to remember a lot of them lost so many pretend relatives.’

When another user responds: ‘What time we meeting later lads, do I need my white sheet? Can I borrow a pitch fork?’

Firman posts, in a further reference to the white supremicist group the Ku Klux Klan: ‘You forgot my burning cross.’

In a response to someone who has posted about refugees claiming benefits, he states: ‘Sorry, really think he should have been spared jail. Instead given a free flight back to Somalia. Oh and when the plane is 30,000 feet over Somalia throw him out.’

And in response to a Sky News story from January 2018 about walk on grid girls being scrapped from Formula One races he write:

‘Wonder if they would have complained if they were all fat and ugly.

‘With boards saying “my legs are open for refugees.’

NN Journal has also seen other tweets, including one in which calls parents ‘retards’ and another refers to Muslim migrants as ‘pure filth’.

Firman, who is a former London bus and train driver, describes himself on his current X account as ‘just an ordinary bloke. Who did not go to university to learn politics.”

He is also a current councillor on East Hunsbury Parish Council, which says he has lived in the area since the early 2000s. We have attempted to track him down via phone and his parish council email and have confirmation from the clerk that he is aware we are trying to speak with him.

An email has also gone to the address posted onto his Facebook campaign page. We have attempted to contact the chair of the recently formed Reform UK’s South Northampton branch Anthony Owens and have not had a response.

The national party also says it will not be responding. When asked whether there would be an investigation into the candidate, we were told the political party, which is led by Nigel Farage, would not normally discuss internal processes.

Over the county border in Leicestershire, the party did respond to a BBC story about a candidate’s racist tweet from 2012, saying ‘we are confident that he and his views have matured and changed since.’

Reform is standing candidates for all of the 144 seats available in the May 1 elections to the North and West unitaries. It currently has four councillors on North Northamptonshire Council, who were all elected under the banners of other parties and then defected.

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Other candidates standing in the Hunsbury ward are:

• Damon Boughen, Green Party

• Bob Burnell, Katie Evans, Matthew McNicholas, Labour

• Pinder Chauhan, Andre Gonzalez de Savage, Daniel Soan, Conservative

• Carl Squires, Brendan Glynane, Lucy Newbury, Liberal Democrats

• Glenn Butcher, Alexander Love, Reform

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