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A Reform UK general election candidate who said Hitler was “brilliant” at inspiring people and described Bashar al-Assad as “gentle by nature” is now in charge of the party’s vetting process.
Jack Aaron’s comments about the Nazi leader and Syrian dictator came to light last year when he stood for Reform in the Welwyn Hatfield constituency. He also claimed Vladimir Putin’s use of force in Ukraine was “legitimate”.
Aaron made the comments as part of a pseudoscientific theory of personality types. He is the president of the self-styled World Socionics Society – a group promoting the idea that there are 16 personality types.
However, while he was one of many Reform candidates whose comments caused controversy and led to many being sacked, he is now head of vetting at Reform UK.
The role includes scouring prospective candidates’ social media outputs and advising them on what should be deleted.
Reform UK’s leader, Nigel Farage, told his party conference in September that it would be vetting candidates “rigorously at all levels” in future after more than 100 were removed before the general election, with many sacked after offensive and racist comments were revealed.
A spokesperson for Reform UK said: “Mr Aaron is Jewish, and sits on his local synagogue council. His grandfather came to this country as a refugee from Vienna and much of his family on that side were murdered by Hitler’s regime.
“Reform UK does not disclose details of our internal vetting process and nor staff members involved.”
The party said socionomics was not part of its candidate vetting process.
There was criticism from Josh Simons, the Labour MP for Makerfield, who said: “Reform are in a tailspin. First, they don’t vet candidates at all. Then they put an apologist for Putin and Assad in charge of vetting.
“If you can’t vet your vetter, you can’t run the country. If they can’t take themselves seriously, why should the public?
“You couldn’t make it up. ‘He can’t be racist because he’s a Jew.’ Out of touch and out of ideas.”
Aaron came third in Welwyn Hatfield with just over 13% of the vote and finished behind the defeated Tory minister, Grant Shapps. Aaron has been approached for comment.
His LinkedIn page describes him as a business psychologist, consultant, YouTuber, coach, relationship counsellor and matchmaker. It adds that he set up the World Socionics Society, which has grown from a Facebook group.
A Reform UK profile page states he “would like to reconfigure the principles of immigration, so that we continue to invite, welcome and assimilate the best of the world, but not allow our way of life to be compromised or threatened by ghettoes of counter-culture”.
When contacted last year by the Times about his remarks on Hitler and other figures, he said he stood by many of the comments and that there was context and “nuances” in which he was viewing them through a psychological perspective.
Aaron has said that by no means was he saying that Hitler, Putin or al-Assad were good people who should be admired.
In a post on social media in 2022, Aaron said Hitler was “brilliant in using Fe+Ni [socionics personality traits] to inspire people into action”.
Days after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Aaron said that those who called Putin insane “do not understand him and limit their ability to oppose him”.
He said: “The motivation to acquire and wield force is legitimate, and there is a whole group of personality types inclined to this, and they have historically shaped the world we live in.”
In a comment on Reddit, he said that Assad was “gentle by nature” and not “some bloodthirsty tyrant who exercises control over his people with an iron fist”, adding that the dictator had been “led astray” by social stereotyping.
Reform’s Chair, Zia Yusuf, has claimed that the party is now vetting candidates in a more rigorous way than any other party and one of his central aims is to create a roster of candidates who are “upstanding members of society”.
