Kevin Hollinrake has been accused of “stooping to the gutter” after sharing a social media post linking Reform UK to the Nazis.
Speaking to GB News, Global Affairs Adviser at Reform UK Alan Mendoza delivered a scathing takedown of the Tory Party Chairman, declaring the move “unconservative”.
Defending the post, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch told GB News the tweet was made “in jest” and was “funny”.
She told GB News Political Correspondent Olivia Utley: “He didn’t actually say anything at all. He just put a link to a Wikipedia page of who else had had golden historical badges. I’m not going to apologise for a tweet that was made in jest.”
Hitting out at Mr Hollinrake’s post, Mr Mendoza told GB News host Martin Daubney: “I think it’s a seemingly ill-advised tweet from the Chairman of a Conservative Party to be doing.
“This is a kind of antic you expect from the far-left, and for him to have done it and then not have apologised, you had to actually have done some serious research to get to that rather ridiculous idea that some Nazi gold coin was similar to what the Reform Party is putting out on a pin badge. I mean, it’s just pathetic.”
Criticising Mrs Badenoch for defending the Chairman, he added: “It wasn’t done in jest. I don’t understand why Kemi Badenoch’s defending it, and I don’t understand why the tweet was put up and not been taken down since.”
As Martin highlighted that the move is “doubly damaging” as the attack is from someone seemingly on the right side of politics, Mr Mendoza agreed.
Alan Mendoza hit out at Kevin Hollinrake’s swipe at Reform UK, declaring the Tory Chairman ‘unconservative’
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PA / GB NEWS
He said: “Well, I simply think it’s a very unconservative thing to do. This is not what Conservatives claim to behave, that’s not the way that they do things.
“And yet to stoop to the gutter in this way – if you want to engage in the battle of ideas, fine, engage in the battle of ideas, say you don’t agree with something. But to bring in lazy gesture politics like this is unconservative and it, frankly, just doesn’t fit serious politicians.”
Pinpointing the “decline in standards” in today’s British political sphere, Mr Mendoza explained: “It does get back to that level of discourse, asking what is going on in our politics today?
“Where this becomes sort of acceptable and is laughed off, when in reality it reflects a sad decline in standards, and that is not what we should be doing across the political spectrum.”
Mr Hollinrake shared a link to the Wikipedia page of the ‘Golden Party Badge’ that was given to Nazi Party members
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As Martin claimed that the Tories would argue “free speech” and the “joke” element of the tweet, Mr Mendoza dismissed the actions as a “lazy shortcut” in political debate.
He told GB News: “There is obviously the sense that if you make your opponent seem beyond the pale politically, you can encourage extreme reactions to them.
“But I think really it’s just a lazy shortcut to engaging in debate and discussion. If you lob that at someone, you’ve kind of tried to end the conversation, haven’t you’ve gone ‘they’re so bad that all I’ve got is this’.”
Defending Reform UK against the Tory “own goal”, Mr Mendoza stated: “In reality, we all know that there are millions of Reform voters out there, a number of whom used to be in the Conservative Party.
Mr Mendoza told GB News
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GB NEWS
“So for this to have been pushed out by the Conservative Party seems to me a bit of an own goal in trying to get those people back.”
He concluded: “The reality is that Reform voters are not Nazis, the Reform Party is not a Nazi party, and the very fact that we’re debating this tells us how low politics has become.
“Because rather than discussing the ideas and the big questions of the day, we’re talking about meaningless, meaningless labels when we should be talking about indeed the big questions coming up later this week.”
Hitting back at Mr Hollinrake, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage responded to Reform’s statement on the post, simply adding: “This is why they are on course to win 14 seats at the next election.”