Polls apart

CASE for the defence . . . Phil Woolas (centre) arrives at court where he took the witness stand yesterday

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ELECTION TRIAL 1

AN Oldham MP made reckless false statements in a risky strategy to win an election he feared he would lose, a historic court case heard.

Ex-Immigration Minister Phil Woolas even set about stirring up racial tensions in a desperate bid to win votes, it was alleged.

Prosecutor Helen Mountfield QC, made the claims as she set out the case against the Labour MP in a specially convened election court — the first case of its kind for nearly 100 years.

Defeated Liberal Democrat candidate Elywn Watkins is challenging his re-election as Oldham East and Saddleworth MP, claiming the vote was swayed by Labour leaflets containing false statements.

If High Court judges Mr Justice Griffith Williams and Mr Justice Nigel Teare agree with his petition it could see Mr Woolas debarred for three years and a by-election held.

In her opening address, Miss Mountfield said it was not a surprise to Mr Woolas that his majority was down by more than 3,500 when he won May’s general election by only 103 votes.

Extracts in his diary published in the Independent and email exchanges showed he spent most of the campaign “pretty convinced” he was going to lose.

The diary showed he knew there would be a national swing away from the ruling party, that decisions he had taken as Immigration Minister were unlikely to have endeared him to all members of his constituency and that he had been heavily criticised in the expenses scandal.

He also feared that Tory supporters would not vote for an Asian candidate in Kashif Ali and would switch to the Lib-Dems — his main rival. Miss Mountfield said: “His agent and his team were playing for high stakes and came up with a strategy to deal with the perceived Lib-Dem threat that they themselves described as ‘risky’.

“Their strategy was not to lay into Lib-Dem policies. Instead they set out to attack Lib-Dem contender Elwyn Watkins personally, in whatever way possible, and to say whatever it took to turn the electorate against him.”

This led to the false statements in a pamphlet on May 1, a newspaper called the Examiner around the same time and a leaflet called The Rose on May 5, she said.

“A consistent theme was that Phil Woolas’s team made an overt, and some might say shocking decision to set out to make the white folk angry‚ by depicting an alleged campaign‚ by those who they described generically as Asians‚ or Muslims‚ to take Phil out‚ and then present Elwyn Watkins as in league with them.

“This anti-Watkins campaign was intended to Galvanise the white Sun-reading vote‚ against him.”

They painted a picture of a concerted attempt by Muslim extremists to “take out” Phil Woolas, deliberately sought to kindle a fear of Mad Muslims‚ and falsely portrayed Mr Watkins as conniving with them, she said.

They supported these statements with pictures of people they knew had nothing to do with Oldham or Mr Watkins.

They falsely said Mr Watkins had made policy statements to woo and pander to extremists and fanatics, that he took this craven stance because he was in the pay of a rich Arab Sheikh, and that he had committed criminal offences by spending more than the law allowed on printing election leaflets and by illicitly channelling funds from a foreign donor to buy the election. They also falsely claimed he had broken his promise to move into the constituency.

Miss Mountfield said Mr Woolas wanted electors to hear that Mr Watkins had personally conducted himself in a wholly reprehensible way — but it was all untrue.

“These statements were made in a desperate attempt to change the predicted election result,” she added. “They unfairly traduced the petitioner’s personal character, and falsely depicted his personal conduct as criminal and dishonourable. We say that Phil Woolas had no reasonable basis for believing those statements of fact to be true.

“He made these false statements, knowing them to be false, as part of a series of reckless and irresponsible steps in this campaign — using doctored photographs, misrepresented facts, stooping even to fomenting racial and religious divisions. He did it because he feared that if he didn’t, he would lose.”

The Representation of the People Act prohibits making false statements of fact in relation to the personal character or conduct of a candidate for the purpose of affecting the result. It’s designed to ensure the integrity of the electoral process and enable people to exercise a free choice.

Mr Woolas says he will defend himself robustly. The trial at Uppermill Civic Hall is scheduled to last five days.