Reform candidate called for Sturgeon to be shot

Oh dear. Just two days to go until polling day and Reform is once again in the limelight after yet more controversial comments by a candidate have come to light. It transpires that the party’s Orkney and Shetland choice, Robert Smith, is responsible for a series of damning social media posts – in which he takes aim at JK Rowling, Nicola Sturgeon and Ursula von Der Leyen amongst others.

Between 2016 and 2023, Smith took to social media to post about a number of political and public figures using rather derogatory language. The Times reports that Smith targeted journalist and broadcaster Andrew Marr, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and London mayor Sadiq Khan using vulgar sexual language. He called Christine Lagarde, president of the European Central Bank, ‘head bitch of the globalists’. And, after persistently using the word ‘bitch’ in reference to Rowling, journalist Kay Burley and Sturgeon, Reform’s Scottish candidate also shared an article about Scotland’s former first minister, writing: ‘Since the great David Attenborough legitimised calls for political leaders to be shot, why not start with this bitch?’ Good heavens…

Party leader Nigel Farage has already apologised for candidate choices who ‘should never, ever have been there’, adding he plans to put the party under ‘much, much stricter control’.