A wannabe Reform councillor standing in a key battleground despite initially failing vetting over racist posts claims he was a victim of Nigerian scammers.
Graham Holland was blocked as a candidate due to “inappropriate social media” but then permitted to run after presenting what Reform said was “new evidence”.
Now we can reveal his version of events — that he was a hit by an elaborate scam traced to Africa. The ex-Tory councillor told of being a born-again Christian and also cited the verdict of his “computer guru” pal Gareth – referencing a meeting he had with him at the Chunky Teapot café.
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Holland, fighting in Reform target area Bexley, south-east London, was said to have reposted on X a claim Muslims were “training their kids how to kill your kids”. And, in another repost, that “muslims are aiming to take over a country”.
The retired Foreign Office worker, 81, told the Mirror: “I was scammed… And what happened was it was from Nigeria. And I have a colleague who does all my PC work… he got on to it, he traced it back to Nigeria. But also the scammers who did the PC, also took over my Twitter page, or X as it is now. And they sent the two nasty, and they were nasty, the two nasty posts that came out of the Twitter account.”
Asked whether he was saying the tweets were not reposted from his account or that someone had control of his account, Holland claimed: “Someone had control of my account and sent them out from my account.” Questioned on who had control, he replied: “The scammers from Nigeria.”
Pressed on why they would target him, Holland claimed: “I imagine the same reason they target everyone else, to try and use your account to make money…” Holland said his computer expert told him he had been a victim of the same Nigerian scammers on Facebook.
Farage has predicted Reform has a “real chance” of winning Tory-held Bexley. In January, an email from Reform’s vetting team to Holland, seen by the Mirror, rejected him, stating: “Candidate has reposted several items of concern, amongst these are a tweet stating that moderate muslims are irrelevant when muslims are aiming to take over a country and that muslims are training their kids how to kill your kids”.
Despite this, Holland went on to be selected by Reform to contest Bexley Borough Council’s Blackfen and Lamorbey ward. Holland told the Mirror he made a fresh application in March.
Asked if he presented any evidence to the party that he had been hacked by Nigerian scammers, he said: “Yes, I did… the WhatsApp message confirming he looked at my account and could confirm that I had not sent out those two nasty messages… This is my computer expert on whose word I can rely.”
Holland said he sent it to Bexley’s branch chair. “Whether he passed it on to head office, I don’t know. He took my word for that because of the computer expert,” he explained.
Asked what his response would be to people who did not believe him, he said: “As a born-again Christian, I would not be sending things like that, anyway. And, secondly, people who know me, know I would not send out things as inflammatory as that.”
Questioned on whether he had an issue with Muslims, he said: “I know more Muslims than I probably know any other religion apart from Christianity. I have a lot of Muslim friends.”
Holland explained he and “good friend” Gareth talked about the issue. “We spoke about it. He told me technically how it happened at the Chunky Teapot. We have a WhatsApp group that meets for tea, coffee on a regular basis. He was there and I said, look, got this problem… he explained how it happened, technically. And I said could I have something in writing in case anyone, including Reform, comes back to me to say why are you re-submitting your form.”
Holland showed a message apparently from Gareth, which read: “The Twitter account that posted those things is no longer there. The comments no longer exist. This leads me to believe that the hackers had created an account using the new email account they created in your name.”
In late March, Reform’s leader claimed on vetting: “I think we’re dealing with it as effectively, if not more effectively than the others. And I really, really mean that.” Conceding failure in the past, he added: “I think you’ll find we’re doing pretty well now.”
It comes as last month it emerged Reform was cold calling people to become “paper” candidates. Meanwhile, we have lifted the lid on the vile views shared by a series of Reform candidates in recent weeks.
A Reform UK spokesman said: “Mr Holland’s [sic] passed his subsequent vetting application after presenting new evidence which found that he did not have control of the social media account in question.”