Fake leaflets ‘in bid to rig by-elections’

FAR-RIGHT Patriotic Alternative distributed fake leaflets during by-elections in the constituencies of murdered politicians, it is claimed.

PA is accused of targeting Batley and Spen, where Labour MP Jo Cox (inset) died in 2016, and Southend West, where Sir David Amess served.

Channel 4’s Dispatches alleges leaflets in Batley showed Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer taking the knee along with a bogus quote suggesting whiteness is a “threat to our precious multicultural society”.

PA is also alleged to have distributed 15,000 fake Tory leaflets about immigration in Southend in February. Messages shared by PA reveal it hoped to sway locals to vote for “smaller patriotic parties”. C4 also filmed PA in Rotherham and Hull, handing out Covid conspiracy leaflets and far-right propaganda.

Nick Lowes, director of Hope Not Hate, tells C4: “It is illegal to put out a leaflet in the name of another organisation and it is incumbent on the authorities to prosecute where the evidence exists.”

UKRAINIAN hackers have crashed Vladimir Putin’s Victory Day celebrations by targeting Russian alcohol shipments.

Volunteer cyber warriors in the Ukrainian IT Army are targeting the main portal for booze distribution.

The Kremlin-run system controls the supply of mainly vodka to factories and stores across Russia.

Moscow newspaper Vedomosti said factories cannot receive tanks of drink during the disruption – or transport it to shops.

The assault comes ahead of Victory Day in Russia tomorrow – the annual day of celebration commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945.

Security experts fear Putin may use the occasio n to ramp up war efforts by announcing a call up of reservists to boost his flagging invasion force.

In posts on the IT Army’s Telegram group ahead of the attack, the hackers wrote: “If this system is down, the official turnover of liquor and spirits in Russia will be blocked!”

The group stopped the portal last week and have continued to overwhelm it in a bid to keep it offline.

They have used similar methods to disrupt sites belonging to the Kremlin and Russian banks to create chaos since the invasion in February.