The Mill can reveal that five arrests have been made following our investigation into claims that fake independents were put forward by Tameside Labour in May’s local elections, in order to split opposition votes.
Four men and a woman aged between 23 and 47 were arrested this morning in the Ashton-under-Lyne area, as a result of what the police are calling ‘illegality and criminality’ in the run up to the St Peter’s ward election on May 7th. The arrests were made on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud, and police investigations are ongoing.
Our investigation heard that internal messages had been circulated in Labour WhatsApp groups leading to the election, discussing the tactic of planting stooge Independents in order to split the vote of opposition candidates who could benefit from defecting Labour supporters. The messages were allegedly instantly deleted by other group members, and instructions sent to not discuss the topic in that forum.
The Mill investigation linked three of the four official backers of alleged ‘fake’ Independent candidates in St Peter’s – Marie Fairhurst and Muhammad Ali – to the campaign launch party of Labour candidate Atta Ul-Rasool. When the Mill visited Marie Fairhurst’s seconder Afzal Anwar’s home ahead of the election to speak with him, there was a poster for Ul-Rasool in the window.
Atta Ul-Rasool, who is considered amongst Labour sources as Angela Rayner’s protégé and prospective candidate for a seat in Parliament, won the election by 177 votes, beating the legitimate Independent candidate Ahmed Mehmood, who came in second place. He was the only Labour candidate to win a seat in Tameside in May. Marie Fairhurst and Muhammad Ali gained a combined 291 votes, despite not having a presence online, campaigning, or answering our attempts to contact them. Following the election result, the Tameside Correspondent reported that Fairhurst wasn’t aware she was standing as a candidate.
Former Vice-Chair of the Ashton-under-Lyne Community Labour Party, Philip Wilson-Marks, told the Mill that fellow Labour member Councillor Vimal Choksi MBE approached him twice to propose the fake Independent tactic. One of the occasions was in Angela Rayner’s kitchen.
After questioning the result of the election on social media, Cllr Kaleel Khan, who managed the election campaign of Independent candidate Ahmed Mehmood, is now going to officially challenge Ul-Rasool’s victory in the council chamber.
“I will put forward a cross-party motion to challenge the election result, based on the fake Independent candidates that were planted by Labour in order to split the vote. I already have the backing of several parties on this.”
Read our full investigation into the fake Independents here.
Hi, Ophira here, editor at the Mill.
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