CONSERVATIVE PARTY SUSPENDS JACK ROSS OVER CONTRACT KILLING CLAIMS

The Conservative Party said it had suspended former election candidate Jack Ross while it investigates footage in which he appears to discuss the cost of violent attacks and killing. An undercover Al Jazeera journalist recorded the footage at the Conservative Party conference in 2022. Ross appears to describe different prices for assaults, stabbings, shootings and killings. Al Jazeera included the footage in a documentary examining alleged links between British political activists and a Glasgow-based criminal.

The journalist presented Ross with a fictitious dispute involving a deceased uncle’s business and a gang said to be trying to take it over. Ross appeared to offer to arrange help, saying: “I can then go and broker from there.” Al Jazeera said Ross introduced the journalist to a Glasgow criminal with alleged links to the Ulster Volunteer Force. In another exchange, Ross said his contacts could send someone from Scotland or use people in London. The contact later met the journalist at a London hotel and appeared to describe disguising a killing with a car as a drink-driving case.

Police in Scotland said they would assess Al Jazeera’s documentary, *Contract Killers and the Far Right*, for potential criminality. Ross is chief executive of Turning Point UK, the British offshoot of a group founded by Charlie Kirk. Turning Point UK footage released last year showed Ross and other members meeting Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch after Kirk’s death. A Bow Group profile lists Ross as a research fellow and says he has advised MPs and candidates on political and digital strategy. Ross has also been pictured with Boris Johnson, James Cleverly, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Liam Fox.