A Labour candidate standing in the upcoming Welsh Parliament Election has compared Reform UK members to a Nazi militia group created by Adolf Hitler in 1944.
Jane Gebbie, who serves as deputy Labour leader on Bridgend Council and is standing in Pontypridd, Cynon and Merthyr next year, penned a 91-word social media post last week alongside a photo of a Reform UK leaflet sent to residents across Wales.
The former Unison worker scribbled scathing remarks about Reform’s “right-wing rhetoric”, “divisive politics” and “misinformation”.
In her accompanying social media post, Ms Gebbie wrote: “Just so there’s no misunderstanding, as it all sounds so familiar… Hitler had a People’s Army and I doubt many of my age need a reminder of the abject misery of the Nazi regime or the ethnic cleansing that was undertaken by the Wehrmacht, Volksstrurm or the Sturmabteilung.
“Just a quick reminder that they were all found to be complicit of war crimes. If anyone on my personal page has a problem with this statement. Please feel free to ‘unfriend me’!”
Ms Gebbie, who spent some of her childhood in Germany, is also vowing to send her scribbled leaflet back to Reform UK.
The Labour councillor’s reference to Reform’s so-called People’s Army, which now includes more than 268,000 members, appears to centre around Hitler’s last-ditch attempt to form a militia force in 1944.
Volkssturm, which was led by Heinrich Himmler, conscripted boys, elderly men, and other unfit Germans as Allied and Soviet troops closed in on Berlin.
Jane Gebbie, who was photographed on the campaign trail alongside Angela Rayner, vowed to send back her scribbles to Reform UK
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JANE GEBBIE/FACEBOOK
However, the People’s Army was also adopted by members of the resistance movement across Europe, including by anti-Nazi communists in Poland, Spaniards opposing Francisco Franco in the 1930s and in African nations fighting against colonial powers.
Meanwhile, in a modern political context, Italy’s Five Star Movement, France’s National Rally, America’s Tea Party Movement and India’s Aam Aadmi Party have all used similar rhetoric.
However, Ms Gebbie also used her social media post to compare Reform UK to the Wehrmacht and Sturmabteilung.
The Wehrmacht, which operated as the Nazis’s unified armed forces, were responsible for the deaths of around 15 million people.
Hitler’s Brownshirts, known in German as the Sturmabteilung, also played a key role in seizing power and later carried out the horrific Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews in 1938.
Speaking to GB News about Ms Gebbie’s social media post, Reform Councillor Owain Clatworthy said: “Clearly Labour have lost the argument in Wales, and now they’re resorting to dirty tactics because they face total wipeout.
“Thousands of people across Bridgend and across Wales are voting for Reform, and they are parents, workers, unpaid carers, pensioners, students, veterans and, in general, decent, hardworking people who are fed up of the failing political system.
“This juvenile idea that these people are voting for a Nazi-style party is dangerous, and it shows the contempt Labour have for hardworking Welshmen and women.”
A Reform UK spokesman added: “Labour are smearing their own voters when they make these ridiculous claims.
Jane Gebbie also wrote a Facebook post about Reform UK
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JANE GEBBIE/FACEBOOK
Nigel Farage is looking to shore up support in Wales ahead of next year’s election
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PAGB News has also been made aware of particularly toxic campaigning in Wales.
Following the knife-edge Caerphilly by-election, which saw Plaid Cymru edge out Reform UK and Labour slump to its worst result in the once-safe seat, vandals targeted the right-wing party’s Cardiff Road office.
“Now you can f**k off home,” was emblazoned across Reform’s campaign office shutters.
Speaking to the People’s Channel at the Caerphilly count, Llyr Powell said: “I am grateful to every voter who went to the ballot box and voted Reform – despite the fear and attacks that have been put against them by the other parties.”
He added: “They attacked my door in the middle of the night. At the office, we had to have security there. There were a lot of things that went on in this campaign that was very dark.”
Photos shared with GB News appeared to show anti-Reform activists had targeted posters across the constituency that were supporting Mr Powell’s bid to become the party’s second Senedd Member.
Swastikas had been drawn in the corner of one poster, while another crossed out Mr Powell’s face and emblazoned “RACISTS!” over the Welsh dragon.
GB News also understands that anti-Reform activists launched a boycott of shops in the former mining town of Bargoed after local businesses started putting up posters supporting Nigel Farage’s party.
A Reform UK Remembrance wreath was vandalised just a few weeks later, with the party’s logo being left on the floor.
However, Reform UK has not been deterred by some of the “dirty tricks” on show in Wales
“They’ll hate it when we win here in May,” a local Reform insider told The People’s Channel.
Reform UK is setting its sights on winning in Wales next May, with Mr Farage holding a rally in Llandudno last month ahead of Rachel Reeves’s pocket-pinching Budget.
Responding to fury about her social media post last week, Ms Gebbie said: “We saw the way Reform conducted itself during the recent Caerphilly by-election.
“Their disgraceful campaign showed them stirring up racial division and hatred in a peaceful community, just like the Nazis in the 1930s in Germany.
Nigel Farage categorically denies the claims made by Bafta-winning director Peter Ettedgui
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GETTY
“People should also take note of the recent revelations from people who went to school with Nigel Farage. The Guardian found 20 ex-pupils who spoke about his racism and his support for Hitler.
“People who can’t see the parallels need to read up about how the Nazis came to power and what they did when they gained it.”
Sir Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch have called on Mr Farage to apologise after he was accused of telling a Jewish contemporary at Dulwich College that “Hitler was right” and “gas them”.
However, Mr Farage categorically denies the claims made by Bafta-winning director Peter Ettedgui.
Speaking to GB News, the Reform UK leader said: “There’s a very large political element to this.”
He added: “I absolutely deny the charges that are made by this one individual.”
Mr Farage also described himself as the “force in British politics fighting against racism and against extremism”, citing his role in seeing off the rise of the British National Party.
GB News has approached Welsh Labour for comment.