The public record on Robert Kenyon: Reform UK’s Makerfield candidate

Paul G Webster, 24 May 2026. Compiled from primary sources; every claim linked.

Summary

On 18 June 2026 the voters of Makerfield will choose between Andy Burnham and Robert Kenyon. Kenyon is a plumber, a former army reservist, a Wigan councillor, and the man who took 31.8 per cent of the vote here in 2024. He is also a man with three deleted social media accounts, a Facebook connection to the leader of a neo-fascist group, and an archived posting history that includes amplifying far-right figures during the Southport riots, misogynistic comments about women, Covid conspiracy theories, and a call for a method of torture prohibited under international law.

Reform UK has stood by him on every count. They say he is not polished. They say that is the point.

This piece compiles the public record in one place. Every claim is linked to a primary source. The reader can check every one.

I write this from a disclosed position. I am the communications officer for the East Lindsey Green Party. The Greens are not standing a candidate in Makerfield; their initial candidate withdrew on 21 May. My interest in this by-election is structural, not partisan. The Old Labour reunification analysis published today on this site identifies Makerfield as the pivot-point of the current Labour leadership transition. What follows is the public record of the man who may become this constituency’s next MP. It belongs to the voters of Makerfield, not to any party.

Who Robert Kenyon is

Self-employed plumber and gas engineer. Former British Army reservist (Lance Corporal). Six years as a specialist technician in the NHS in Lancashire, including during the pandemic. Claims family roots in the Makerfield area spanning approximately 200 years. Lives locally. (LBC.)

At the 2024 general election, Kenyon stood as Reform UK’s candidate in Makerfield and finished second with 12,803 votes (31.8 per cent) to Josh Simons’s 18,202 (45.2 per cent), a Labour majority of 5,399. In the May 2026 local elections he was elected to Wigan Council for the Bryn with Ashton-in-Makerfield North ward. He was subsequently selected as Reform’s parliamentary candidate for the 18 June by-election triggered by Simons’s resignation. Nigel Farage framed the contest as David versus Goliath — the plucky plumber against open borders Burnham.

Three deleted or suspended accounts

Three accounts. All gone. The investigative record assembled by Hope Not Hate, Byline Times, and Searchlight rests on material recovered from each of them before the deletions took effect.

1. @Makerfield_RFK (X/Twitter). Created January 2024. 419 archived tweets. Suspended by the platform in 2024; the reason for the suspension has not been disclosed by either X or Reform UK. This is the account from which Kenyon conducted his 2024 general election campaign. (Byline Times, 20 May 2026.)

2. @robkenyon1 (X/Twitter). A second, older account uncovered by Hope Not Hate. Deleted by Kenyon after the investigation was published. This account contained the Covid conspiracy posts, the Vorderman comments, and the waterboarding call. (Hope Not Hate, 21 May 2026; Left Foot Forward.)

3. Facebook account. Deleted after Kenyon was elected as a Wigan councillor on 7 May 2026. This account contained the connection to Gary Raikes. Reform stated the page was conventional and was taken down after he became a councillor. (LBC.)

Connection to a neo-fascist organiser

The campaign group Searchlight documented that Kenyon was Facebook friends with Gary Raikes, 67, the leader of the New British Union — an attempted revival of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. Raikes previously held official positions in the British National Party and Britain First. (LBC.)

Reform UK did not deny the connection. Farage stated: He campaigned here at the general election, hundreds of people joined as friends, and one of them turned out to be unsavoury. A Reform spokesman added: A Facebook friend does not constitute an endorsement of his views. Reform claimed Kenyon never communicated with Raikes. Labour called the allegations serious and deeply troubling.

Southport and the 2024 riots: a timeline

What a parliamentary candidate does in the hours after children are murdered tells you something that a manifesto cannot. The Byline Times investigation (20 May 2026) reconstructed Kenyon’s posting activity from the archived @Makerfield_RFK account during the Southport attack and subsequent riots. The timeline is drawn from that reporting.

29 July 2024: The Southport attack

Three children were murdered in a knife attack in Southport. Within 80 minutes, before any official information about the attacker’s identity had been released, Kenyon began posting:

13:02 BST Referenced a separate Bolton child murder case, stating when they wouldn’t release her name — implying media suppression of a Muslim perpetrator’s identity. The Southport suspect’s identity was not yet known.

14:25 Retweeted Turning Point UK criticising police virtue signalling.

15:02 To the Home Secretary: Secure the borders, deport foreign criminals and free up prison spaces.

16:42 Amplified Carl Benjamin’s (Sargon of Akkad) claim that Merseyside police were celebrating homosexuality on the same day as the stabbing.

17:50 Called migrant border crossings an invasion.

20:18 Direct recruitment message to a comedian: Join Reform UK… we are the only chance we have of saving this Country.

Kenyon subsequently invoked the Jamie Bulger case to argue that the 17-year-old suspect’s name should be released, despite legal restrictions protecting minors. His pressure campaign continued past midnight.

August 2024: The riot period

During the peak of the riots, Kenyon amplified content from multiple far-right figures:

On 6 August, peak riot day, Kenyon posted racially framed assault footage to a police account: Have you seen this assault? and Is it a hate crime for Asian men walk round in Birmingham assaulting white people en masse? He called Liverpool metro mayor Steve Rotheram an absolute throbber for suggesting the children’s deaths were being weaponised.

On 7 August, Kenyon discouraged Reform supporters from attending local protests — but framed them as being set up rather than condemning the riots themselves.

October 2024: The cover-up narrative

On 29 October, Kenyon amplified Dan Wootton’s Southport Massacre cover-up claim, posting: The timing of the release of this makes me wonder.

Misogynistic posts

From the @robkenyon1 account (Hope Not Hate investigation, 21 May 2026; Left Foot Forward):

Carol Vorderman responded in the Mirror: Fundamentally, Rob Kenyon is a misogynist. I wouldn’t let him in my house if he was a plumber in my area, not with what he’s been posting online. There’s always a pattern. She added: Nobody knows why his X account was suspended. Hopefully, that will come to light before the by-election. X is a very low bar for suspension and the public should know. (British Brief, citing Mirror; LBC.)

Conspiracy theories and violent rhetoric

From the @robkenyon1 account:

Violent rhetoric:

The 2024 campaign: immigration as universal frame

Byline Times documented a pattern across Kenyon’s 2024 campaign posts in which immigration was applied as the framing for every policy area (20 May 2026):

Brexit, Crimea, and the candidate's own record

The Times reported that Kenyon may not have voted for Brexit. In a post dated 28 March 2019, he wrote: I'm none of the above when discussing Trump support and Brexit voting. He also wrote: I woke up the day after Brexit shitting myself. He later claimed EU treatment had made him glad we voted out and praised EU free movement as great when they are natives of the EU countries. Reform UK responded that Kenyon voted Leave in 2016 and is a proud Brexiteer, unlike Andy Burnham. (HuffPost UK, citing The Times.)

Separately, in 2014 Kenyon claimed Russia was within its rights to annex Crimea, comparing it to the Falklands. (HuffPost UK.)

Reform UK's candidate for a by-election built on Brexit-era grievance politics woke up after the referendum "shitting himself." The party whose foreign-policy positioning depends on projecting strength against Russia has a candidate who publicly defended the annexation of Crimea. The pattern is not hypocrisy. It is the absence of any fixed position at all.

National culture war, local constituency

Kenyon can name local problems. Potholed roads, hospital overcrowding, housing affordability, apprenticeships, drug use — he has mentioned all of them (Wigan Today). But look at what happens the moment he starts writing about them. Housing becomes we know who will be put in there. Crime becomes stop allowing HMOs. A Labour beach-sunset campaign image becomes was this photo taken at Calais? Foreign policy becomes say goodbye to your Greenbelt and hello to millions of new migrants. The subject changes. The destination does not.

Makerfield has specific, material problems. It needs specific, material answers about housing stock, about NHS capacity, about transport links and employment. A candidate whose documented instinct is to redirect every one of those concerns into a national grievance frame is not offering governance. He is performing for a national audience from a local stage. The voters of Makerfield are entitled to ask which audience he would serve as their MP.

Reform’s own framing answers the question before Kenyon can. Farage called the contest David versus Goliath and branded his candidate the plucky plumber against open borders Burnham. That is a national media line. It tells the voter what to feel. It says nothing about what Kenyon would do about Makerfield’s roads, its schools, or its waiting lists. The slogan is the strategy.

Reform UK’s response

Reform UK has stood by Kenyon on every count. Their full statement:

We fully back Cllr Kenyon. He is an excellent, local candidate who we are confident will be a superb MP for Makerfield. These comments were made before he was in politics. 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.

Four requests for comment from Byline Times went unanswered. Reform said it would not investigate the social media allegations. On the Raikes Facebook connection, Farage stated: He campaigned here at the general election, hundreds of people joined as friends, and one of them turned out to be unsavoury.

The vetting question

Mark Pack, the psephologist and former Liberal Democrat president, called this a shocking failure of vetting. (markpack.org.uk.) But the word “failure” implies accident. At some point a pattern stops being a failure and starts being a policy.

This site has documented that pattern. The Lincolnshire mayor piece catalogues Reform candidates with documented far-right links, including three who matched the leaked 2007–08 BNP membership list by name and verified address. The Council Changes Tracker records mid-term Reform councillor departures across the 2025 and 2026 cohorts: resignations, defections, suspensions, expulsions. Kenyon’s record does not break the pattern. It extends it.

The electoral context

Survation polling (18–22 May 2026, n=504) puts Labour on 43 per cent and Reform on 40 per cent. Three points. Inside the margin of error. At the 2024 general election, Labour’s majority here was 5,399 votes. Steve Richards has called this the most significant by-election in post-war British history. Channel 4 News: arguably the most important by-election in living memory.

The arithmetic has shifted further since that poll. Rupert Lowe’s Restore Britain has entered the race, splitting the anti-Labour vote three ways alongside Reform and the Conservatives. Professor Tim Wilson’s analysis of 23 May names the consequence: if Labour wins by a margin smaller than the Restore vote, Lowe becomes the accidental midwife of a Burnham premiership. Reform supporters are already calling Lowe Burnham’s little helper. (Professor Tim Wilson, 23 May 2026.)

Three deleted accounts. A Facebook friend who leads a revival of Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. Eighty minutes between children being murdered and the first post seeding a cover-up narrative. Amplification of a man later jailed for inciting racial hatred. A call for waterboarding. Crude remarks about women. Conspiracy theories. And a party that looked at all of it and said: he is not polished, and that is the point.

This is the public record of the man who may win.

Disclosure

I am the communications officer for the East Lindsey Green Party. I am not a resident of Makerfield. I have no connection to Andy Burnham, the Labour Party, or any other candidate in this by-election. The Green Party is not currently standing a candidate in Makerfield. This piece is compiled from published investigative reporting by Hope Not Hate, Byline Times, Searchlight, the Daily Mirror, LBC, Left Foot Forward, ITV News, and Mark Pack. No original investigation was conducted; the contribution of this piece is compilation, structure, and source-linking. Every claim can be checked by following the link provided.