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.
Read our full investigation here.
Hi, Ophira here, editor at the Mill.
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