LONDON — The right-wing political party set up by U.K. Brexiteer Nigel Farage has apologized after publicly firing one of its election candidates for being “inactive” — when the candidate had in fact died.
Reform UK admitted it didn’t realize that Tommy Cawkwell, its election candidate in York Central, had perished when he was sacked for lack of activity.
“We can’t afford to have people doing nothing in an election year,” a party spokesperson had told local news outlet the York Press.
But Cawkwell had actually died two months before.
Reform UK spokesperson Gawain Towler said Wednesday night he was “mortified” at the error.
“Having it being suggested that we had rescinded Mr. Cawkwell’s candidacy for inappropriate social media messages by a local paper, I suggested that he was one of those candidates that had been removed for inactivity,” Towler told POLITICO.
“Reform was not aware that Mr Cawkwell had passed away,” he said. “Naturally I am mortified that through ignorance I did not realise the reason for his inactivity. It must have been ghastly for his family to read about it in the way it was presented in the press.”
Reform UK was set up by Farage — one of Britain’s most prominent Brexiteers — in 2021 as a right-wing alternative to the ruling Conservatives. Farage stepped back from front-line politics shortly after founding Reform, which is currently led by the businessman Richard Tice.
Recent polling shows that Reform is now just a few percentage points behind Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives. Farage is yet to decide if he will return to the party in a senior role ahead of this year’s general election.
But Reform’s selection process has been hit by a series of gaffes.
One candidate, in Aberdeenshire, was ditched after they made pro-cannibalism comments and suggested the former U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace “should be left to die” in Afghanistan, while several others have been dropped for making offensive comments on social media.
The party are, for now, standing by other candidates whose outlandish views have been revealed by the press — including one who said criminals should have “their organs harvested.”
