Party loses court challenge over slogan in wake of MP’s murder

A POLITICAL party has lost a High Court challenge against the removal of an “offensive” slogan from ballot papers in the aftermath of Jo Cox’s murder.

Robin Tilbrook, leader and founder of the English Democrats, said the Electoral Commission was wrong to object to the party’s use of the word “fighting” in the aftermath of the Batley and Spen MP’s death.

But, in a ruling yesterday, Mr Justice Supperstone said the commission was “entitled” to reach its decision.

Ms Cox was stabbed and shot in her constituency by Thomas Mair in June 2016, during the final week of the EU referendum campaign.

Following a review, the Electoral Commission removed the phrase “English Democrats – England worth fighting for!” from ballot papers during the byelection for her former seat in October of that year. The commission concluded the word “fighting” would be associated with its “violent, primary, literal meaning” by a significant number of voters in the polling booth. Mr Tilbrook argued the commission was “biased”, had reached an irrational decision and said his party should have been consulted. During a hearing last month the solicitor told the High Court: “We didn’t think it was offensive. “We are a small party with very little money and we rely on being visible on the ballot paper to get our message out.

“To lose something like that with no power to resist and no opportunity to be consulted in advance is just potentially devastating.” Lawyers for the commission said Mrs Cox’s “politically motivated murder” by Mair, who shouted “Britain First” as he killed her, created “electorally extreme” circumstances for the byelection.

They said her murder was an act that “struck hard at the core of the democratic electoral process” and, in that context, it would have been “inappropriate and ill-judged” to allow words associated with violence on the ballot papers.

Dismissing the English Democrats’ case, Mr Justice Supperstone said: “I do not accept that the decision was one the commission could not reasonably have reached.”