We shouldn't have fought Hitler - Reform candidate

A candidate for Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has claimed the country would have been “far better” off if it had “taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality” instead of fighting the Nazis.

- KATE DEVLIN

Ian Gribbin, who is standing in Bexhill and Battle, also wrote online that women were the “sponging gender” and should be “deprived of health care”. He also described Winston Churchill as “abysmal” and praised Russian president Vladimir Putin, according to the BBC.

A Reform spokesperson said the comments were not “endorsements” but “written with an eye to inconvenient perspectives and truths”. His remarks about women, meanwhile, were described as “tongue in cheek”. Mr Farage said that “every party will suffer” controversy triggered by its candidates, suggesting that was the nature of a snap election.

Mr Gribbin is reported to have posted on the Unherd website in 2022: “Britain would be in a far better state today had we taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality … but oh no Britain’s warped mindset values weird notions of international morality rather than looking after its own people.”