Corbyn gives Commons office job to activist with poll fraud conviction
JEREMY Corbyn has hired a Momentum activist with a conviction for election fraud to work in his parliamentary office.
Marsha- Jane Thompson, 36, was sentenced to 100 hours of community service after registering scores of fake voters.
A national figure in the radical group Momentum, she also worked on Mr Corbyn’s leadership campaign. her move to the heart of his Commons operation prompts questions as to whether an individual with a record for voter fraud should be working in politics.
Last night Tory MPs condemned Mr Corbyn’s decision to recruit Miss Thompson.
‘Jeremy Corbyn has brought a convicted fraudster into the heart of Westminster,’ said Chris Philp, who represents Croydon South. ‘This shows a chilling contempt for our democratic processes.’
Miss Thompson confessed to submitting electoral registration forms for more than 100 different addresses in the London borough of Newham, where she was a housing officer.
Appearing at Snaresbrook Crown Court in March 2006, she admitted filling out and submitting multiple voter registration forms herself, including forging signatures. Miss Thompson was also a supporter of Lutfur Rahman, the Tower hamlets mayor who was thrown out of office for rigging an election and using corrupt and illegal practices when standing for re-election.
in 2010 the Unison activist led protests to Labour’s National Executive Committee after Rah- man was sacked from the Labour mayoral candidacy.
She claimed the complaints against him were trumped up to overturn a candidate selected by party members and instead ‘impose a stooge candidate’.
The hard-Left Morning Star newspaper has described her as a key member of Corbyn’s campaign team. Sporting aquamarine hair, Criminal record: Marsha-Jane Thompson with Jeremy Corbyn. She was convicted of registering scores of fake voters when working for a London council nose rivets and a tattoo, she was pictured last year alongside Mr Corbyn at the start of his campaign to retain the Labour leadership.
her Facebook page contains pictures of her alongside the Labour leader on marches and wearing a pro-Corbyn T-shirt.
She admitted 19 specimen counts of using a false instrument, contrary to the 1981 Fraud and Counterfeiting Act, and one count of false accounting under the 1968 Theft Act.
Newham council said she had ‘submitted electoral registration forms for more than 100 different addresses which appeared to contain discrepancies’.
The council launched an investigation into her activities before she confessed following questioning by officials.
Marianne Wood, the council’s chief internal auditor, told the court: ‘We managed to stop what could have been an extremely serious situation involving potentially false information getting on to the electoral register. We take fraud extremely seriously and will not hesitate to prosecute anyone who defrauds the council.’
Miss Thompson also has strong links to John Mcdonnell. She was vice chairman of the Labour Representation Committee, a hard-Left group chaired by the Shadow Chancellor, which has provided many of Mr Corbyn’s aides.
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn told the Evening Standard: ‘We do not comment on staff issues.’
Last year, a spokesman for Momentum said of Miss Thompson’s conviction: ‘Over a decade ago, she pleaded guilty to an offence and completed community service. Marsha- Jane’s conviction is now spent. She has always been open about the conviction, which she still deeply regrets, with her employers.’
Momentum activists have been accused of infiltrating constituency parties with the intention of undermining moderate Labour MPs, or even threatening to deselect them.
Tory MP for Braintree James Cleverly said: ‘ i find it quite extraordinary, at a time when we all have a duty to uphold the integrity of and public opinion of British politics, that Jeremy Corbyn decided to employ someone as a campaign chief who has pleaded guilty to electoral fraud.’
‘Chilling contempt for democracy’