Joshua Bonehill-Paine

Joshua Bonehill-Paine (born 7 December 1992), also known as Joshua Bonehill and by the pseudonym Crewkerne Man, is an English political satirist, described by Private Eye as “a media darling”, who created the YouTube channel The Crewkerne Gazette in March 2025, which publishes AI-generated videos. He was formerly a far-right nationalist, internet troll, and convicted criminal, being imprisoned in 2015; he abandoned his far-right views whilst in prison and started delivering counter-extremism lectures following his release in 2018.

In 2015, he ran a blog called The Daily Bale ("Britons Against Left-wing Extremism") which published several racist and anti-immigration hoaxes, as well as false accusations against his opponents. He described himself as "a proud anti-semite". Bonehill-Paine's online activity led to criminal charges being brought against him for harassment, antisemitic commentary and hoaxing, including a 2013 online hoax that led to the owners of a Leicester pub receiving death threats, and other false accusations, for which he received a suspended prison sentence. He was described as an "internet troll" by the prosecutor at a 2014 court hearing. He was arrested in June 2015 for inciting racial hatred against Jews, for which he was found guilty in December, receiving a jail sentence of three years and four months. In 2016, he was sentenced to two years in prison for racially-aggravated harassment to be served in addition to his first sentence. He served his sentence at HM Prison Wayland.

Whilst in prison, Bonehill-Paine began to question his previous antisemitic views after reading the Bible. He completed the Home Office-accredited Healthy Identity Intervention Programme while in custody and passed the government's Prevent deradicalization program. He was released from prison in May 2018; following his release, he delivered counter-extremism seminars to schools, police and universities focused on challenging antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Bonehill-Paine created his YouTube channel in March 2025, initially going by the anonymous pseudonym Crewkerne Man. He has been profiled in the press as a prominent figure in the emerging genre of AI-assisted political satire. In a profile for The Spectator, writer Max Jeffery described the Crewkerne Man as “the most important political satirist of the moment”, crediting the channel’s rapid-response format and high view counts with helping its videos break into mainstream attention. Jonathan Baz, writing for The Times of Israel, described the Crewkerne Gazette as being produced by “creative wizards” and as “merciless” in its parodies of leading British political figures. The Times also reported that the creator had been referred to by fans as the “Banksy of politics”, noting the channel’s large online reach and its fast production cycle after political events such as Prime Minister’s Questions. Bonehill-Paine was publicly revealed as being the real identity of the Crewkerne Man in February 2026; he apologised for his past antisemitism.