I’m not ready for the exit door says defiant Woolas

Phil Woolas after being found guilty by the election court.

Disgraced former Labour minister Phil Woolas today vowed to fight to clear his name despite being branded a liar.

And he says it should be the people of Oldham and Saddleworth who decide his fate.

Speaking exclusively to the Chronicle Mr Woolas, — who was sensationally stripped of his Oldham East and Saddleworth seat by a historic ruling from two High Court judges — said if the same electoral law was used across all MPs the majority would be out of office.

He said: “I am going to clear my name.”

Statement
The speaker of the Commons John Bercow will make a statement today when the election must be re-run in Oldham East and Saddleworth, after Judges Nigel Teare and John Griffith Williams supported Mr Woolas’s Liberal Democrat rival Elwyn Watkins’s election petition — the first of its kind for 99 years.

Mr Watkins had said that Mr Woolas had made untrue statements to stir up racial tensions in Oldham and make white voters angry so they would vote for the Labour candidate. Mr Woolas’s majority on May 6 was a wafer-thin 103 votes.

Mr Woolas is now in a political wilderness. He has no official party backing after the Labour Party nationally suspended him, and deputy leader Harriet Harman said he would not be allowed back into the party even if he won his appeal.

She said: “It is no part of Labour’s politics for somebody to be telling lies to get elected.”

Blackley and Broughton Labour MP Graham Stringer was one of the first to Mr Woolas’s defence saying he had been “hung out to dry” by the party.

But Liberal Democrat deputy leader Simon Hughes said he was surprised Mr Woolas had not “fallen on his sword” and quit politics.

Mr Woolas said: “I have had thousands of messages of support and I am very pleased with the support from the constituency and from MPs, and a lot of MPs are absolutely outraged that someone who has been in the Labour Party for 30 years and has given his life to it should be treated like this.”

He added: “The public of Oldham has elected me four times and I think it is not fair they are not allowed to have a choice. If people think I have cheated and lied the people of Oldham should be allowed to judge that. No-one knows other than me whether I believe what I say is true and I have never lied.”