Honiton & Sidmouth Reform candidate posts distasteful 'Dahl' images

Party doesn't respond to issue

A Devon Reform UK candidate appears to have posted controversial social media posts, including one alluding to prime minister Rishi Sunak’s Indian heritage.

Paul Quickenden, who is standing in the new Honiton and Sidmouth constituency, has a mocked-up picture of Mr Sunak with the heading ‘Dahl Boy’ on his Facebook page.

The image places Mr Sunak’s head on the body of sitcom wideboy from Only Fools and Horses, Del Boy, and also features Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and London mayor Sadiq Khan as ‘grandad’ and ‘Rodney’, respectively, from the show.

The famous yellow Robin Reliant is also in the image, but rather than ‘Trotters’, the surname of Del Boy in the show, it says the word ‘Traitors’, and has 666 as the number to telephone.

666 is a biblical reference popularly known as the number of the beast, or devil.

Mr Sunak is a British Sikh of Punjabi Indian heritage.

It’s unclear who originally created the image that Mr Quickenden is promoting to his Facebook followers.

The image came to light as part of an investigation by ITV which claimed that four Reform UK candidates belonged to a public Facebook group that regularly posts racist messages.

Mr Quickenden has also posted comments and shared Facebook posts, including one with 24,400 followers saying: “Cultural Jihad , happening now in plain site and encouraged by both main parties.”

Mr Quickenden uses this post to advance his campaign in Honiton and Sidmouth, inviting followers to vote for Reform UK in the constituency.

The ITV report also referenced two other unnamed Reform candidates who had posted potentially racist posts, with one allegedly commenting in 2016 that ‘Hitler founded Israel’, and then another posting the image of Mr Sunak, which has since been reproduced on Mr Quickenden’s profile.

Discussing the issue from a national perspective, Reform UK’s leader Nigel Farage told ITV it hired a vetting agency, vetting.com, to perform background checks on its candidates, but the firm said the speed with which the general election was announced meant its process had to be rushed.

“Our candidates are not sophisticates or Oxbridge graduates,” Mr Farage told ITV.

“Our candidates may have a sense of humour that is a bit rough and ready, but we believe in free speech.”

Mr Quickenden has a GoFundMe campaign to help him pay for election costs, and has raised £1,170 from 16 donations out of his £2,000 target as of 24 June.

A Devon spokesperson for Reform UK has not responded to requests for comment.

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