Reform UK’s Makerfield byelection candidate appeared to doubt seriousness of Covid on X

The Reform UK candidate in this month’s Makerfield byelection appeared to express doubt over the seriousness of Covid and the efficacy of vaccines for the virus in another tranche of messages unearthed from now-deleted social media posts. Previously seen messages from Robert Kenyon showed him interacting with far-right figures and expressing strong support for Donald Trump. Separately, the broadcaster Carol Vorderman has asked Kenyon to apologise for “disgusting comments” he made about her on X in the past. Kenyon, a plumber who stood for Nigel Farage’s party in Makerfield during the 2024 general election and is going up against Andy Burnham in the byelection on 18 June, was a prolific poster on X, using an account that has since been deleted. Archived webpages show a series of posts connected to Covid, including one in July 2022 in response to a post about a new variant. “It’s not making people sicker, I’ve no booster and had covid last week asymptomatic,” he wrote. When challenged as to why he was expressing such views based on just his own experiences, Kenyon replied: “At the same time I had it, four other people on the course I was on caught it all the same as me, no symptoms.” He said his 70-something mother-in-law had experienced it “as a cold” despite having chronic lung disease. …