Election campaign re-run ordered

Elwyn Watkins

Former Rochdale Councillor Elwyn Watkins has won a landmark legal case after former immigration minister Phil Woolas was ruled to have knowingly made false statements about him during the General Election campaign in Oldham East and Saddleworth in which Mr Watkins stood as the Liberal Democrat candidate.

The specially convened election court has ruled the campaign/ballot is to be re-run. The court had heard that the Mr Woolas, the incumbent Labour MP, stirred up racial tensions in a desperate bid to retain his seat in Oldham East and Saddleworth. His campaign team was said to have set out to "make the white folk angry" by depicting an alleged campaign by Muslims to "take Phil out". 

Liberal Democrat candidate Elwyn Watkins mounted the rare legal challenge over the statements made in a pamphlet and two mock newspapers distributed in the final stages of May's contest which Mr Woolas won by just 103 votes.

Giving their judgment, Mr Justice Nigel Teare and Mr Justice Griffith Williams said Mr Woolas was guilty of illegal practices under election law.

He had attacked his opponent's personal conduct and character with statements that he courted Muslim extremists who had advocated violence against the Labour MP.

He had suggested Mr Watkins had refused to condemn such threats in pursuit of personal advantage. Both statements were untrue and Mr Woolas knew them to be, the judges said. They declared May's poll result as void.

Mr Woolas was also found to have knowingly made a false statement that Mr Watkins had reneged on a promise to live within the constituency prior to the election.
That suggested Mr Watkins was "untrustworthy".

But the judges found it could not be proved that Mr Woolas had deliberately made a false statement about claims his opponent solicited illegal donations from a foreign donor.

Councillor Dale Mulgrew said: “We welcome this historic announcement. This is damming evidence of the way the Labour Party operates across Greater Manchester. Mr Woolas had clearly tried to stir up racial hatred across Oldham in a desperate bid to cover his shameful record as Immigration Minister and his time as MP for Oldham.

“This is the kind of bad politics that the public wants to move on from and Woolas’ actions leave quite a stench of the old politics, which only gives politics a bad name. As Liberal Democrats we are committed to introducing a new kind of politics that would stop this disgraceful action. This ruling is an historic moment that will hopefully lead to a long term cleaning up of politics.”