The elections on May 7 seem likely to return a Liberal Democrat council – one strengthened by seats won from the Tories by Reform, who are fielding some candidates who don’t even bother disguising their racist views and support for the likes of fascist agitator Tommy Robinson.
CARL SHILTON reports
Sutton’s Liberal Democrats, caught in a nasty scandal of their own making over the deselection of David Campanale as their parliamentary candidate, could nonetheless emerge the major beneficiaries of the emergence of Reform Ltd, as Labour and Conservatives in the borough prepare for heavy losses when voters go to the polls next Thursday.
‘Pseudo-science’: Prof Angus Dalgleish is Reform Ltd’s candidate in North Cheam
Ten years ago, the Carshalton and Wallington half of the borough voted strongly for Brexit, and Reform has attracted that core support. Nigel Farage’s motley collection of what were once dismissed as “a bunch of fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists” have chosen candidates for all 55 council seats to be contested. Except that some are no longer just closet racists.
Standing in North Cheam ward is Professor Angus Dalgleish, notorious as a medical adviser to the anti-vax US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, and one who claimed that the covid vaccine had caused cancer in the Royal family.
Reform’s national conference was told last September that Prof Dalgleish claimed that the Princess of Wales and King Charles’s cancers were probably caused by covid vaccines. Dalgleish later confirmed his view to the British Medical Journal.
Immunology specialists have described Prof Dalgliesh’s comments as “crass”, “pseudo-science” and “untrue”.
Last year, Reform distanced themselves from Dalgleish’s comments – they did “not endorse what he said” – but they have selected Prof Dalgleish for the Sutton elections anyway.
Back for more: Arlene Dearlove has been selected again, despite overtly racist social media
Prof Dalgleish was a UKIP parliamentary candidate in Sutton and Cheam in 2015, when he polled little more than 10% of the vote, so he will have been on Farage’s radar for a decade, at least.
Prof Dalgleish is the former foundation chair of oncology at St George’s Hospital, Tooting. In 2016, he said that the NHS was under “intolerable pressure” and at risk of collapse due to high levels of immigration.
Experts from Cancer Research have dismissed Dalgleish’s comments: “There is no good evidence of a link between the covid-19 vaccine and cancer risk.
“The vaccine is a safe and effective way to protect against the infection and prevent serious symptoms.”
Brian Ferguson, professor of viral immunology at the University of Cambridge, said: “Evidence that mRNA vaccines cause cancer is simply untrue. There is no credible evidence that these vaccines disrupt tumour suppressors or drive any kind of process, biochemical or otherwise, that results in cancer.
“It is particularly crass to try to link this pseudoscience to the unfortunate incidents of cancer in the Royal family.”
Yet it gets worse.
Fits in well: Rob Ewing, Farage’s candidate in Sutton Central, has a company which owes more than £1m in tax
If Reform’s offers of bringing down Council Tax through a better-run council sounds appealing, voters ought to check out some of Faragist candidates’ business records. Check out Rob Ewing in Sutton Central, for example.
Ewing said on his Facebook page that he would either “shit or get off the pot”, and decided to shit. Ewing is managing director of a facilities support services company, CFS Group, which appears to be trading reasonably well. Another of his companies, Complete Facilities Solutions Ltd, is in liquidation with around £2million in debts and more than £1million owing in tax.
Ewing must fit in very well in a party where its leaders dodge tax and fail to declare multi-million-pound donations.
Yet it gets much worse.
Being associated with individuals with convictions for kidnapping and insurance fraud does not appear to trouble Sutton Reform.
Last weekend, local “patriot” Billy Cooper organised a St George’s Day event in St Helier, where renowned racist, criminal and Tommy Robinson chum Danny “Tommo” Thomas was a speaker. He’d arrived hot-foot from inciting rioting in Epsom over unfounded and false allegations of a gang rape.
False claims: BBC reports from ‘patriot’ Billy Cooper’s false insurance claims
Cooper is likely a member of Reform, although he hasn’t managed to make it on to their candidate list. Not this time around, anyway.
He attended the Reform rally at the Fairfield Halls at the end of March, though he also seems to support Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain party. Cooper frequently posts explicitly racist content on social media, including caricatures, calls for harassing mosques and he’s liked a message using the racist P-word. Cooper has also made multiple posts in support of fascists, including the British Union of Fascists and Oswald Mosley. He’s posted a Hitler speech with a love heart over it.
Cooper likes to organise “community” events, which have a deeper, sinister undercurrent. Reform Ltd’s Sutton branch thought it would be a good idea to have a stall at the event. The two St Helier wards, East and West, with the large council-built estate at the centre, are seen by Reform as a strong recruiting ground.
‘Patriots’ rally: Billy Cooper and some of his friends, who overtly support Britain First. Sutton Reform last week attended a rally organised by Cooper
Arlene Dearlove, another with links to Tommy Robinson and Britain First, is standing in Carshalton South and Clockhouse, where she finished third in a by-election 12 months ago. Stand Up to Racism Sutton campaigned against her in the ward, highlighting her support for far-right causes.
Stand Up to Racism’s evidence was mostly provided by Dearlove herself, from her social media posts.
Dearlove’s Twatter account still exists, but she has carefully removed her dodgier postings since being exposed (a bit like how Coulsdon nonce Peter Morgan got Reform in Croydon to try to erase their self-incriminating social media messaging). What Dearlove probably doesn’t understand is that the interweb has a very long memory, and the evidence still exists.
The specifics are that she replied approvingly to statements by Britain First leader Paul Golding and deputy leader Ashlea Simon – the content of these messages included a call to deport 15million people, and a sweeping statement to deport “the lot of them”. This referred explicitly to Muslims.
Dearlove also called on “right-leaning groups on the periphery” to unite, in direct response to Paul Golding saying “elect Britain First”. Farage’s party claims that it has a ban on individuals with backgrounds in Britain First or the BNP, and claims that it has a thorough vetting process. Given Dearlove has been selected as a Reform candidate twice in a year, Farage’s vetting process would appear to be less than competent.
Stand Up to Racism maintain that they have brought all these matters of concern to the attention of local Reform activists and candidates. The warnings have been ignored.
Sutton LibDems, meanwhile, have been suspicious quiet on the matter. This could well be a case of archly cynical opportunism, as Barry “basher” Lewis and his crew of leaflet deliverers will be hoping Reform do them lots of favours across Sutton by chipping away at the Conservative vote.
The current council make-up of 28 LibDems, 20 Conservatives, five Independents and two Labour – a LibDem majority of just one – is certain to change.
Read more: Sutton LibDem ‘should not be a lawmaker’ after court defeat
Read more: Crowley joins Beddington Independents for election campaign
Read more: Sutton budget passes with £34.5m deficits to come by 2029
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It’s perfect – Reform and Conservatives are chasing the people, splitting the vote, allowing decent parties like LD or L to emerge. Hurrah!
I’d read some of the IC articles about the Lib Dems in Sutton before calling them ‘decent’.
See for example the article on 30th April about the treatment of one of their own party members and countless articles about the incinerator.
Of the three boroughs in London’s Deep South, Reform seem to be targeting Bromley and Sutton, but have largely given up in Croydon, except in New Addington and Shirley, which border on Bromley.
Are they doing the same in Waddon and other places bordering on Sutton? And are the 55 council candidates for Reform in Sutton all alive, unlike their original Mayoral candidate in Croydon ?