Hythe Tory councillor resigns over far-right links

Campaign group Hope not Hate released photos showing Andy Weatherhead as a member of the NBU (left) and later as a member of the Conservative Party (right)

A Tory councillor has quit after fresh evidence emerged over his links to a far-right organisation.

Andy Weatherhead had already been suspended by his local party in Kent after it emerged he used to be a member of the New British Union (NBU).

The Hythe West councillor now says he is stepping down as a member on Kent County Council (KCC).

It comes as the BBC uncovered an interview in 2014 which apparently shows the extent of his NBU links.

Mr Weatherhead confirmed he gave the interview, but denied he was NBU policy officer, the term used by the interviewer to introduce him.

He gave the interview to an online radio station called the American Nationalist Network under the pseudonym Andrew Blackhouse.

In the recording, he is heard saying: "I've always been an admirer of fascism. I've always been an admirer of Benito Mussolini and Sir Oswald Mosley, and last year I was trawling through the internet as one does and came across the New British Union and I thought 'hello, this sounds like right up my street', so I contacted them."

He also refers to his work for the NBU as "fleshing out policies".

'Policies from 1930s'

Mr Weatherhead apologised in a statement given to the BBC and said: "It was not my intent to cause harm or offend. It is in the past. I completely and utterly reject anything to do with fascism."

He said he had not heard from or seen NBU leader Gary Raikes since 2014.

He also claimed that when he had talked about "fleshing out policies" in the interview, this meant "adding punctuation".

Mr Weatherhead said the policies themselves had been written by the British Union in the 1930s.

Last week, after he was suspended by Folkestone and Hythe Conservatives, he said the NBU had not been a registered political party, had no defined membership and his links with the group were "in the spirit of education and curiosity".

He said after 2014 he had re-entered mainstream politics and turned his back on fringe politics "having seen it for what it truly was".

The leader of KCC, Roger Gough, said he welcomed Andy Weatherhead's resignation as a councillor.

He said: "The views and associations reported have no place in the Kent County Council Conservative group."

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