The gay Lib Dem ex-porn star and a sleazy plot to smear Tim Farron

He’s all smiles with Lib Dem boss... but plotted revenge over gay views

TIM FARRON has been the victim of a vicious smear campaign by an ex-porn star and Liberal Democrat party member enraged by the former leader’s views on homosexuality, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Chris Cooke became a Liberal Democrat candidate and policy adviser after leaving the pornography industry.

He was under suspension after making an offensive tweet about another politician when he raised outrageous allegations against Mr Farron. He made a formal complaint to party managers in the middle of the Election campaign, raising unfounded claims about Mr Farron’s personal conduct as an act of revenge over the suspension.

Mr Cooke, 33, had starred in films titled Double Pleasure, SoldierBoy and SpyBoy.

Embarrassingly, just eight months before he made the complaint, Cooke – who chaired the party’s LGBT+ campaign wing – was pictured with his arm around Mr Farron at the party’s annual conference in September last year, smiling and giving the thumbs-up as they drank together.

His complaint to the party’s compliance officer, David Allworthy, came soon after married Mr Farron, a devout Christian, had been embroiled in controversy on the campaign trail over whether he regarded homosexuality as a ‘sin’. After weeks of dodging the question, he eventually said it was not a sin, but not before his stalling had infuriated many pro-gay party members.

Mr Farron resigned as party leader on Wednesday, on the grounds that ‘remaining faithful to Christ’ was incompatible with leading his party.

It came after a number of senior Liberal Democrat figures had visited Mr Farron to try to persuade him to step down in the wake of the party’s disappointing Election results, increasing its number of MPs by just three, to 12.

Yesterday, explaining why he had made the complaint, Mr Cooke said: ‘I felt betrayed by the party and was drunk at the time.

‘It is an email I regretted sending and have retracted.’

Mr Cooke, from Bramcote, Nottingham, was suspended from the party after saying on Twitter in May that local Tory MP Anna Soubry should not be ‘spared the noose’ over her expenses claims.

Mr Cooke said: ‘I was just p***ed off with my suspension over a non-issue and made up a story to cause trouble.’

Last night the Liberal Democrats confirmed that the allegations made by Mr Cooke were ‘completely untrue’.

A senior party official told The Mail on Sunday that the complaint had compounded the alarm in a party which was at the time struggling to achieve a breakthrough in its campaign amid the continuing fall-out from the row over Mr Farron’s religious beliefs.

The official, who helped to persuade Mr Farron to resign, said: ‘I was aware of the complaint and obviously I mentioned it to somebody in his office but there was nothing more than that.

‘Tim’s office had no power to do anything and I had no power to do anything.

‘It appeared to be motivated by anger over the row about Tim’s beliefs.’ One of Mr Cooke’s friends told this newspaper: ‘Many people thought Farron was not only a liability in terms of his antigay views but not liberal or Leftwing enough.

‘There was a section of the party

‘Motivated by anger about Tim’s beliefs’

that were simply out to get him’. At the time of his suspension, Mr Cooke had already been picked to fight last month’s county council elections in the former mining community of Ollerton in North Nottinghamshire. He won 126 votes out of almost 3,500 cast. In his televised resignation speech last week, Mr Farron said: ‘From the very first day of my leadership, I have faced questions about my Christian faith. I’ve tried to answer with grace and patience. Sometimes my answers could have been wiser.

‘The consequences of the focus on my faith is that I have found myself torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader.

He added: ‘To be a political leader – especially of a progressive, liberal party in 2017 – and to live as a committed Christian, to hold faith-

fully to the Bible’s teaching, has felt impossible for me. I seem to be the subject of suspicion because of what I believe and who my faith is in. In which case, we are kidding ourselves if we think we yet live in a tolerant, liberal society.’

A Liberal Democrats spokesman said last night: ‘While subject of disciplinary proceedings within the party, Mr Cooke made wildly defamatory allegations. The investigation against Mr Cooke continues.’