Derek Bullock, a former Conservative and Independent councillor on Bolton council for Hulton, has been selected to stand as the Reform candidate in the same ward in local elections on May 7.
It cost him the Conservative nomination in 2023
Derek Bullock, a former Conservative and Independent councillor on Bolton council for Hulton, has been selected to stand as the Reform candidate in the same ward in local elections on May 7.
In April 2023, Mr Bullock was nominated to stand by the Conservative party in similar Bolton council elections.
At that time, a screen-shot emerged which showed a Facebook post following the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017, under the post an account which appears to show Mr Bullock’s name and profile picture commented: “Shoot the P***s on the spot.”
On the day nomination papers for the election naming Mr Bullock as a Conservative candidate were published in 2023, party chiefs terminated his membership.
Mr Bullock, who had been a councillor since 2019, remained on the ballot paper and subsequently won the election and sat as an Independent, before losing his seat in the May 2024 elections.
Now the image may be threatening his Reform nomination
The issue of the screen-shot re-emerged in an article published in the past week by the group HOPE Not Hate, after Reform UK confirmed him as its candidate for Hulton.
This week, Mr Bullock said he believes the screen-shot image had been faked.
A spokesperson for Reform UK said: “Mr Bullock has always strongly maintained that this image is fake and has reported this resurfaced material to the police.
“It is also incorrect to claim that Mr Bullock was expelled from the Conservative Party for this post.
“Mr Bullock is a valued member of his community and is currently a trustee of the Asian Elders’ Resource Centre in Bolton.”
In April 2023 Mr Bullock also maintained the post in question was fake.
At that time a Conservative party spokesman said ‘councillor Bullock has been expelled from the Conservative Party’.
Previous allegations around attitude to others
Previously, in March 2020, Cllr Bullock faced disciplinary action from the Tories after it was alleged an article from an anti-Muslim activist’s “JihadWatch” had been posted on his Facebook.
In response to an article about former party chair Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, he reportedly added: “She’s been a cuckoo in the nest!”
And in another post, from February 2015, he was alleged to have shared a news article with the headline ‘Number of Muslim children in England and Wales doubles in a decade’, adding the comment ‘the clock is ticking’.
Greater Manchester Police have been contacted regarding Mr Bullock’s assertion that he had informed them of the alleged fake post.
An article by Local Democracy Reporter Chris Gee.
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