The valiant voters who risked all to expose nest of corruption
WITH the police ‘too afraid of being branded racist’ to act and the Electoral Commission insisting it was not their job, it fell to four local residents – three of them grandparents – to challenge the sinister might of Lutfur Rahman.
Andy Erlam, 64, Angela Moffat, 47, Azmal Hussein, 63, and Debbie Simone, 44 faced a ‘potentially devastating’ legal bill if they lost and knew Mr Rahman would attempt to portray them as ‘racists and Islamophobes’ for bringing the case.
‘And so it proved, the petitioners have been duly vilified,’ the judge said. ‘But they have hung in there. They have been vindicated.’
Mr Erlam, an Oxford politics, philosophy and economics graduate, grandfather, businessman and former Labour Parliamentary candidate, had stood as an independent. He lost, and was so shocked at the ‘major perversion of the democratic political will’ he had witnessed, he went on radio station LBC and called for the results to be overturned.
By law, any voter can turn ‘electoral vigilante’ by applying to bring a court case alleging electoral fraud under the Representation of the People Act 1983. Four people are needed to launch an election petition, and it had to be done within 21 days. Mr Erlam was joined by Ms Moffat, a grandmother of four and Ukip member, Mr Hussein, a grandfather and Brick Lane restaurateur, and Miss Simone, who has two grown-up children and was a Labour candidate who felt she had been cheated.
Their case was ‘uninsurable’ and they were warned the costs could reach £2million if they lost. Mr Hussein agreed to cover any costs for Ms Simone. Mr Erlam covered Ms Moffat. Muslim Mr Hussein said: I don’t like my religion being misused in this way. The police weren’t doing anything.’
The Met did not bring any charges against Rahman, despite receiving 131 complaints of electoral malpractice. The Electoral Commission, the watchdog set up by Labour in 2000 at a cost of £17million a year, washed its hands of the case, insisting it was not its job to investigate.