Exclusive:"I like to wind people up" says ex-Reform councillor in Sheffield after 'Nazi' scandal
“I am stronger from the experience and I’m ready to crack on.”
A Reform councillor in Sheffield who was kicked out of the party after his social media posts appearing to praise dictators were unearthed said: “I like to push the boundaries, I like to wind people up.”
Nathaniel Menday won his seat in the Woodhouse ward at the May local elections while standing for Reform UK.
Just a week later, he was suspended when The Star revealed a number of deleted posts on X (formerly Twitter) in which he shared Nazi imagery and claimed the UK had a “subhuman underclass”.
He now serves as an independent on Sheffield City Council.
In his first interview since the controversy, he said many of the posts - particularly one depicting a swastika flag in a room, which he said was a widespread meme and not his own picture - were jokes.
“I’ve got a bit of a sick sense of humour,” he said.
“I like to make jokes - I know I shouldn’t do this as a councillor now, so I don’t - that are edgy.
“I like to push the boundaries, I like to wind people up - I mean be careful what you wish for on that last one.”
Coun Menday, who studied politics and history at university, said that World War Two is “so ingrained into the western world’s contemporary zeitgeist” and that people are regularly called Nazis on social media for expressing right-wing views, which he finds “ridiculous”.
“Honestly, being called a Nazi [..]. is obviously sub-optimal for your mental health, but I think it makes you stronger as a person.
“I am stronger from the experience and I’m ready to crack on.”
Coun Menday said that he turned off his phone and binge-watched the Sopranos the week he was suspended, before travelling to Vietnam and Cambodia for three weeks.
He has said that he is choosing to talk six months later to raise awareness of his hopes in council and properly address the social media controversy.
“I want to put my side of the story across because, just to put my cards on the table, I'm no angel but I do think I've been deliberately misrepresented by the press in order to smear my reputation and by extension the reputation of the party,” he added.
“I know that people will quibble about making comments and jokes like that, but it was made in jest, it doesn’t reflect what I actually believe.
“I mean it goes without saying, I said it on my Facebook and I’ll say it again, any regime that murders millions of people, tens of millions of people, for any reason is without a shadow of a doubt evil - 100 per cent.
“And especially if you’re just doing it because they’re from a certain background that’s abhorrent.”
“I know that people will quibble about making comments and jokes like that, but it was made in jest, it doesn’t reflect what I actually believe,” he continued.
He accused the media of cherry-picking inappropriate comments while ignoring thousands of posts on his X account that portrayed the true picture of his beliefs.
However, when presented with posts in which he describes a “sub-human underclass” in the UK and calls on the creation of an ethnostate - a nation consisting of only one race of people - he admitted: “Those weren’t jokes.”
Addressing the first comment, he said: “I shouldn’t have used that sort of language. I’ve been guilty of using Twitter particularly to vent.
“Not that it’s any excuse but I was in a particularly bad mood and I said something that I shouldn’t have said.
“I apologise for using that language, I know that I shouldn’t use that language - it’s a slippery slope when you start dehumanizing people.”
The councillor said his comments on ethnonationalism were made in summer 2024, around the time of the riots in Manvers, Rotherham, with him wishing to “pin my cause to the mast”.
When asked if he was an ethnonationalist, Coun Menday responded: “I wouldn’t say that now, I’d say my views are more complex.”
“I’m not hung up on someone’s ethnic background - British, English culture exists and you can be culturally English or British without having any English ancestry. However I do believe culture is downstream from ethnicity,” he added.
He explained that “white flight” - where white residents relocate out of areas that foreign nationals have moved in - means that certain communities never integrate into local culture.
“I don’t think that you are English just because you are born here,” he continued.
Though he conceded that it wasn’t as simple as quickly identifying people based on factors like race or ethnicity, adding: “It is complicated - I don’t want to box people in, I understand it is more complicated than that.”