Exclusive: Farage Urged To Sack Reform Candidate Who Called Zelenskyy 'A Nazi'

Nigel Farage has been urged to fire Reform UK candidates standing in the local elections after HuffPost UK unearthed a series of controversial online posts.

One suggested Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a Nazi, while another defended the use of the word “P**i”.

More than 5,000 council seats in England are up for grabs on May 7 and Reform are expected to make major gains across the country.

But with just over two weeks until voters hit the ballot box, HuffPost UK has unearthed controversial social media posts by some of the party’s candidates.

Janine Crook, who is standing in Darwen East, wrote on Facebook in November 2021: “I partly agree but in my area Aussie is used in a friendly manner and ‘P***’ used as an insult. I do think that is the problem.”

Meanwhile, Reform’s Barnsley candidate Theresa Arnold said in March 2025 that people backing Ukraine’s war efforts should feel like “mugs”.

“I have never supported Zelenskyy,” she said, comparing him to a Nazi – which is a Kremlin talking point.

Writing on Facebook, she claimed: “How propaganda has worked on our citizens! Zelenskyy is part of the party that overtook Europe in 1939 that starts with an ‘N’. It has been covered up because Obama and Biden were a part of this. Trump was impeached just for questioning them about Ukraine.”

In another post from November 2024, she said: “FGS sausage Starmer. DO NOT allow Ukraine to use UK missiles against Russia. Surely, you can’t be that thick.”

Bob Jones, who is standing in Sandwell, is part of an anti-Nato Facebook group called No To Open Borders – A Populist Party Campaign.

In July 2025, it posted: “Nato/UK/USA/Israel foreign policy has opened the gates for radical Islam by toppling Assad, Hussein and Gaddafi.”

Another post from the group appeared to support former Reform MP Rupert Lowe, who now sits as a right-wing Restore Britain MP after a major fallout with Farage.

It reads: “Do you remember Enoch Powell and how he was treated by the Tories for telling the truth. In 2025 the equivalent of Ted Heath is Nigel Farage and Enoch’s equivalent is Rupert Lowe. Think about it. History repeating itself.”

A Labour Party spokesperson told HuffPost UK: “Reform has yet again been found to put up candidates with abhorrent views, from horrific racism to insulting our closest allies. 

“These Reform members don’t demonstrate the values the British public expect from their representatives and should not have been put on the ballot paper.

“Nigel Farage needs to kick these people out of his party immediately.”

Reform UK has been approached for comment.

The revelations come less than a week after HuffPost UK discovered other figures standing for Reform in the local elections had been sharing controversial posts on social media, too.

One claimed “Islam is a cancer” while another claimed: “People who eat bacon are less likely to blow themselves up.”

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