Ben Rowe - Councillor for Ham ward, Plymouth | Reform Watch
Profile and accountability tracker for Ben Rowe, Councillor for Ham ward, Plymouth. Reform UK.
Role: Councillor for Ham ward, Plymouth
Party: Reform UK
Recorded incidents (showing 1-4 of 4)
Ben Rowe suspended days after election over Islamophobic and antisemitic posts
Category: hate speech
Ben Rowe was suspended by Reform UK pending investigation in May 2026, days after winning his Plymouth City Council seat, over a series of social media posts accused of being Islamophobic and antisemitic. The posts emerged before polling day, when Reform said it was investigating, but he remained on the ballot and was elected with 1,649 votes.
Recorded incident
Category: hate speech
Location: Southport
Ben Rowe, Reform candidate for Ham ward on Plymouth City Council, posted from an anonymous YouTube account called "TheRedEyedJedi" during the 2024 riot outside a mosque in Southport. He urged the rioters to "get rid of that filthy building".
Recorded incident
Category: hate speech
Ben Rowe, Reform’s candidate for Ham ward on Plymouth City Council, posted on his publicly accessible Facebook profile content that idolised Vlad the Impaler and fantasised about impaling Muslims. The material was visible on his profile alongside other inflammatory commentary targeting religious and racial groups. A 2026-04-23 article published screenshots of these posts and reproduced additional social media material from his accounts, including a screenshot in which he urged rioters to “get rid of that filthy building” during a riot outside a mosque in Southport in 2024. The online material prompted questions about the party’s vetting of candidates.
Rowe urged Southport rioters attacking a mosque to "get rid of that filthy building"
Category: offensive
Ben Rowe, Reform UK's candidate for Ham ward on Plymouth City Council, urged protesters throwing bricks at police defending a mosque during the 2024 Southport riots to "get rid of that filthy building". Separately, he wrote that Jewish people were "creating division by forcing other races on our societies" and described immigrants to the UK as "breeding like rats". The remarks, combining incitement against a place of worship during a live public-order emergency, antisemitism and dehumanising language about migrants, were surfaced in HOPE not hate's April 2026 investigation into Reform's candidates ahead of the 7 May 2026 elections. The report used his case to illustrate that Reform had continued to select candidates whose posts had been publicly visible for months.