Reform candidate says he will not apologise for social media posts labelled antisemitic
Antony Antoniou says he has been subject to a 'character assassination' and has nothing to apologise for
The Reform UK candidate standing in Northampton North has accused the media of twisting his social media posts, after tweets labelled antisemitic were exposed.
Sky News reported over the weekend that Antony Antoniou was one of three Reform UK candidates who have been found to have posted antisemitic tweets by the Campaign Against Antisemiticism.
They point to a 2016 post in which he shared a link to a video defending Adolf Hitler titled the ‘world defeated the wrong enemy’ and also he was found to have shared conspiracy theory tweets about Jewish financier George Soros. The posts have now been deleted.
Speaking to NN Journal yesterday Antony Antoniou said:
“I don’t regret showing people what is out there. I have done nothing wrong and I don’t feel the need to apologise.”
He said he has spoken to the Reform UK party and they are aware of his position. He called the media report a ‘character assassination’ and denied being racist.
In a blog on his website posted after the expose, the candidate who is one of seven hoping to get elected in Northampton, said that a number of the 71,000 posts on his X feed were automatically generated and has accused the media of trying to smear him.
The anti-racism campaign group has said the Reform UK party ‘needs to revisit their support for these individuals’.
In his blog post Antony Antoniou, who sells property, said that after deciding to stand as a candidate he did not delete his X account as he had ‘never said anything to offend anyone, but I had not factored the determination of the media to find a story.’
Instead he says the posts were intended to educate:
“Historical events that are evil must not be forgotten, people who continue to incite hate must be called out, but there again, that was my personal logic and all elements of logic and decency seem to be abandoned when the media is out to tarnish a candidate, especially a candidate standing for Reform UK.”
“However, it seems that sadly our media are more concerned about scoring points, rather than conducting some research and establishing my character. They have not even taken the time to look through this website, where the articles I have written speak for themselves and I stand by them.”
The candidate’s website has a number of blogs on it. He has written about race and immigration, says there is a culture of contempt for the ‘white European race’ and says the country needs a strong leader to prevent the nation from becoming ‘lost’.
The party, which is led by Brexiteer Nigel Farage, has been under pressure in recent days following a Channel 4 expose which showed a canvasser using a racist term to describe PM Rishi Sunak and calling Bradford, ‘Bradfordistan’.
Another activist was also filmed making offensive comments and called the LGBTQ Pride flag ‘degenerate’.
Antony Antoniou, who attended Northampton School for Boys, has been sharing X posts, which claim that the canvasser was an actor and yesterday posted an online poll asking whether the mainstream media is abusing its position during the election.
The party, which came third in February’s Wellingborough byelection with 13 percent of the vote, has in recent days dropped three candidates for making offensive comments.
How the party will do when the votes are counted on Thursday is one of the big unknowns.
At a private “meet your candidate” function in Boughton on Sunday, the Conservative’s candidate for Daventry Stuart Andrew said the biggest threat to his attempts to win would come from Reform UK.
Saying he thought the Conservatives would do a lot better than the opinion polls are suggesting, he told those at the meeting:
“We have had many encouraging responses, and we get the strong impression that when it comes to the day, most of our traditional voters are going to stay with us.”
Former MP for Daventry Chris-Heaton Harris, who has decided to not defend his seat, had a 26,000 majority.
Other candidates in Northampton North are:
Eishar Bassan, The Green Party
Dan Bennett, The Conservative Party
Paul Clark, Independent
Christopher Leggett, Liberal Democrats
Khalid Razzaq, Workers Party
Lucy Rigby, Labour Party
To my friends in the Labour Party and elsewhere. Too many confuse anti-Semitism with opposition to the state of Israel's government or sometimes even support for Palestine. Antoniou is displaying total and unvarnished anti-Semitism-more commonly known as fascism. This the ideology is poisonous and must be opposed every time it rears its ugly head. I hope at Thursdays' county this reptile and his supporters are shunned by everyone else there.
In my life I have heard many racist comments made by many races, West Indian v Asian, Indian v Pakistani and English about almost every race on the planet. However, I can honestly say that I’ve never heard an anti semitism comment once. Is it just me?