Reform’s by-election candidate Robert Kenyon is under fire over lewd remarks reportedly made on rugby league forums, including claiming women have abortions for ‘vanity purposes’
Reform’s by-election candidate has been accused of sharing anti-abortion views and claiming women “can’t drive”.
Robert Kenyon is under fire over alleged remarks made on rugby league forums, including claiming women have abortions for “vanity purposes”. The claims pile pressure on Nigel Farage’s party to drop Mr Kenyon, who is running against Andy Burnham for the Makerfield seat.
The comments were made on a rugby league forum by an account under the username ‘post’, which says in other comments that their Twitter handle is @robkenyon1 and promotes Mr Kenyon’s book, The Blood Waltz.
Tweets sent by the ‘post’ account accused women of taking any decision to have an abortion lightly, in a later post on the same 2019 discussion thread. He allegedly wrote: “Reproductive rights? Women’s rights? They can dress it up all they want they are deciding to kill a baby inside the womb. … What they mean is they want to shag anyone they want and if they get caught they get a second chance and treat is as a secondary last chance form of contraception. They ain’t kidding anyone”.
READ MORE: Carol Vorderman demands apology from Reform by-election candidate over lewd commentsREAD MORE: LIZZY BUCHAN: ‘Reform show their true colours over ‘misogynist’ Carol Vorderman post’
Later on the same topic, ‘post’ added: “I’d hazard a guess that the majority [of abortions] are for vanity purposes like unwanted pregnancies.”
In comments from the now-deleted robkenyon1 Twitter /X account, it said: “Life begins at conception. Abortion is the cowardly act of murdering a defenceless baby … They don’t want babies? Use contraception!”
According to the i, he also allegedly made posts on an online rugby fan forum in the 2010s reportedly claiming English women “don’t care” about their appearance and “just walk around with their fat bellies and odd shapes pushing a pram at 16 in their PJ’s”. An account linked to the plumber also wrote that women can’t “ref, drive or give directions” and declared: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am.”
The user also allegedly said in a forum: “European women…all have really good figures and are good looking”, and responded to a post with links to images of women saying: “Wouldn’t get me off any of those with a bazooka.”
Discussing women presenting matches on Sky in 2019, he allegedly wrote: “The women on the panel’s aren’t up to the job and only there to tick a box. In a now deleted post on X in 2019, the user also suggested he would “rank higher” than a female presenter who had played professionally because he had “won the Champions League with Accrington Stanley on FIFA Career Mode”.
It comes after campaigning group HopeNotHate reportedly discovered Mr Kenyon had two X accounts, one of which has been suspended by the platform. The other has since been deleted, HopeNotHate alleged.
Mr Kenyon is also under fire over lewd remarks about Carol Vorderman posted on a deleted X account. The former Countdown star has demanded an apology from Reform’s by-election candidate.
Labour party chair Anna Turley said: “It’s a really important election, particularly when you look at the candidates, the Reform candidate who is reportedly coming out with some horrendous misogyny, sexism, some really vile comments on social media, or you’ve got someone like Andy Burnham with a terrific track record of delivery, who is a local lad who really cares about the community there, and is going to be a brilliant representative for them.”
A Reform UK spokesman said: “These comments were made before Cllr Kenyon entered politics. Rob is perfectly entitled to his own personal opinions on abortion. In this country, this issue has always been a matter of conscience, regardless of which party a politician represents.
“Rob isn’t a polished, professional politician and doesn’t speak like one. That’s precisely why he’ll be a straight-talking, effective voice for normal working people in Makerfield.”