Today a highly unusual Election Court struck down the result of the General Election contest in one seat.
Phil Woolas, had recently been appointed to Labour's new Shadow Cabinet responsible for immigration matters. He had been Immigration Minister up to the election. He has been ejected from Parliament for "corrupt practices", fined £5000, ordered to pay costs and disqualified from office for three years. The election will be re-run. Woolas has asked for a "judicial review" - an appeal.
Now the Police have been asked to investigate possible criminal offenses by the Labour campaign team.
Americans may find it particularly interesting in the light of the swiftboating type tactics the Republicans indulge in during elections. UK election law provides that any person or organization who. to influence the outcome of an election
makes or publishes any false statement of fact in relation to the candidate’s personal character or conduct shall be guilty of an illegal practice, unless he can show that he had reasonable grounds for believing, and did believe, that statement to be true.
Woolas won by 103 votes over his Liberal Democrat opponent, Elwyn Watkins. Last minute Labour leaflets accused Watkins of breaking election law relating to expenses, having illegal ties with Arab sheiks and pandering to Muslim militants.
This was an attempt to stir up racial divisions in his constituency as the literature was only delivered in "Sun voting" (for which read "white racist") areas. Prior to becoming Immigration Minister, Woolas had been appointed aa "local government minister with responsibility for race relations" in 2005!
Some Acknowledgements and background
The Electoral Court took place over the course of a week in September. A local Liberal Democrat blogger, Nick Thornsby was given reporting rights and I draw heavily on his excellent work as source material. Unless otherwise linked, the quotes are from his various blogs. A more detailed outline of the case is from him here.
Election Courts are a private action by the person challenging the election. The cases must be held in the constituency and are heard by two judges. The burden of proof on the complainant is the same as in criminal cases "beyond a reasonable doubt". The last time a similar case was invoked for a general election was about 100 years ago but the provision has carried through from earlier Acts to the Representation of the People Act 1983 (RPA 1983) The relevant part is Section 106 which I quoted from on the front page.
Election Expenses.
Election expenses are strictly limited by law and are expressed as a fixed amount plus 7p or 5p per constituent depending on whether it is a city or outside seat. There are two periods which have to be reported. For the last five months of a five year Parliament - the "Pre Candidacy" or "long campaign" phase and the period after becoming a formal candidate once the election has been called - the "short campaign". All candidates get a one sheet election leaflet delivered by the Post Office free.
For the Oldham West and Saddleworth constituency the number of electors is roughly 73,000 which equates to:
Long Campaign Limit (73,000 electors) £30,110
Short Campaign Limit £12,260
The Candidate and their "Election Agent" are jointly responsible for the submission of expenses and other legal obligations.
The Cast of Characters
As it can be quite easy to get lost in the names, there are the main characters in the case.
Phil Woolas - Labour MP and former minister
Joseph Fitzpatrick - Woolas' election agent
Rebecca McGladdery - a previous Liberal Democrat worker
Gavin Millar QC - lead counsel for Woolas
Elwyn Watkins - the Liberal Democrat candidate bringing the case
Philip Renold - Watkins' election agent
David Hampson - the local Liberal Democrat party treasurer
Helen Mountfield QC - lead counsel for Watkins
James Laddie - junior counsel for Watkins
The Various Allegations in Labour Leaflets
In various leaflets issued on behalf of Woolas, allegations were made regarding Watkins. Significantly, of these only the mailshot was delivered to the whole constituency. Insufficient numbers of the others were printed to do this. These were the ones that included allegations about links with militant Islamic groups and implying that Watkins' employer, a very rich Sheik, had (illegally) donated large amounts to bankroll Watkins' campaign.
Evidence was presented at the trial from internal Labour campaign e-mails that the purpose of the latter was to "make the white folk angry" and "galvanise the white Sun vote" (Saddleworth News)
Watkins' residence
In his mailshot, Woolas alleges that Watkins had reneged on a promise to live in the constituency.
This was justified by Fitzpatrick on day 3 of the trial:
Mr Laddie pointed out a letter in the local newspaper from Mr Watkins himself that pre-dates the publication of this leaflet and in which Mr Watkins clearly states that he is living in Delph, in the constituency, and in which he invited the letter writer to whose letter this was a response to go round to the house, have a cup of tea with him and discuss politics. Mr Fitzpatrick was asked why he did not believe this to be a "report" of Mr Watkins living in the constituency. He replied that he did not believe Mr Watkins was telling the truth in this letter.
The Dubious Photographs
The newspaper made extensive use of photos which had passed through an editing program. On this example of a leaflet front page, Woolas' own photo has been obviously superimposed by a "gunsight" outline depicting him has a target.
The other picture on the page depicts his opponent surrounded by police. On closer examination, this proved to be composite of two photographs. The police were not local to the area but Metropolitan (London) police. Some of the details in the photo had been obscured to conceal this.
Other pictures showed the Liberal Democrat candidate surrounded by large numbers of bank notes.
Allegations of Low Pay
One of the front page allegations was that Woolas' opponent had paid office staff at a rate lower than the minimum wage. They made extensive use of Rebecca McGladdery, a disgruntled former worker in his election office, in support of this. She turned out to have been a volunteer supporter who had an argument with an organizer in the office.
Exceeding Election Expenses
One of the most serious allegations was that Watkins has accepted large sums of money from his Muslim employer, a foreign sheikh, to finance his campaign - hence the photo surrounded by banknotes. (image) The "Loadsmoney" refers to a 1990s TV comedy character.
To support this allegation they claimed Watkins was paying people to deliver his leaflets - "over 500,000 in the last five months". They then extrapolated a huge cost for printing and distributing these - £200,000, implying it was being done by a private firm at commercial rates, strongly implying by juxtaposition this was corrupt and came from this Arab employer. (image) Again, this was shown to be false and Rebecca McGladdery confirmed that the deliverers were volunteers. The £200K you will note is considerably in excess of the maximum shown above.
Woolas as target of Muslim extremists
This was a theme running through the leaflets. Woolas, it was claimed, was the target of a hate campaign by Muslim militants which Watkins refused to condemn. Images such as this were used to support this and suggest Woolas had been in immediate danger. Once again, the background image of the Muslim protestors proved to be completely divorced from any incident Woolas has been involved in and taken in London.
The most scandalous thing of course is that a supposedly Socialist MP, a former minister in charge of race relation, then immigration and only recently appointed by the new Labour leader to "shadow" that ministry on the Opposition front bench, should deliberately seek to stir up racial hatred in order to be re-elected.
An irony coinicidence in this is that also Friday, Abu Hamza, wanted by the USA for terrorist charges, won an appeal to retain British citizenship. He is currently serving 7 years in jail for inciting murder and racial hatred.