Reform candidate says UK should have ‘taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality’ instead of fighting Nazis

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.

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 spokesman said the comments were not “endorsements” but “written with an eye to inconvenient perspectives and truths”.

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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.”

The same month he wrote that the UK should “exorcise the cult of Churchill and recognize that in both policy and military strategy, he was abysmal”.

The previous month he criticised women, writing: “Do you think you could actually work and pay for it all too like good citizens?

“Men pay 80% of tax – women spend 80% of tax revenue. On aggregate as a group you only take from society.

“Less complaining please from the ‘sponging gender’.”

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In a separate post, he suggested squaring the inequality “by depriving women of healthcare until their life expectancies are the same as men, Fair’s fair.”

In 2021, he wrote female soldiers “almost made me wretch [sic]” and were a “total liability”.

In the run-up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he said that President Putin had “shown a maturity of which we can only dream of”.

A Reform UK spokesman said: “Through offence archaeology, the BBC has found that Mr Gribbin has made a series of comments about a number of subjects.

“They were written with an eye to inconvenient perspectives and truths. That doesn’t make them endorsements, just arguing points in long-distance debates.

“His historical perspective of what the UK could have done in the Thirties was shared by the vast majority of the British establishment including the BBC of its day, and is probably true.

“Again, no endorsement, just pointing out conveniently forgotten truths.

“As for the feminism point, his tongue is so firmly in his cheek one should be able to spot it from 100 yards.”

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Mr Farage defended his party, saying the Greens had a “bigger problem”. “They’ve had to suspend 20 of their candidates for putting out pretty vile antisemitic tweets.

“Here’s something, I think every party will suffer because it was a snap election. We’ve put in place a good vetting programme but we’ve run out of time.”

Party chairman Richard Tice added: “We’re really pleased with all candidates. When people do inappropriate things, say daft things, then of course, we’ll look at it and investigate it and that’s what we do.”