Postal votes ‘bent’

Photo: Darren Robinson

Ukip’s John Bickley (left) with leader Nigel Farage

UKIP will file a formal complaint over alleged abuses in yesterday’s by-election, leader Nigel Farage has announced.

Mr Farage said he was not questioning Labour's victory, but denounced the electoral process as "bent" after claims people had arrived at polling booths carrying bundles of postal votes.

Mr Farage said the result raised questions about the conduct of elections in areas with large ethnic minority communities. He said in constituencies with large numbers of non-English-speaking minority voters "effectively the electoral process is now dead".

There were 7,115 postal votes - 25.6 per cent of the overall vote.

Candidate John Bickley said that though it would not have changed the result, it would have made a difference.

"Nothing went wrong, we put up a big fight. The postal vote is not fit for democracy,” he said.

Liberal Democrat candidate Jane Brophy said: "I'm really proud of the campaign the Liberal Democrats fought — and congratulations to Jim.”

The Green Party’s Simeon Hart, said: "I'm going to carry on with the Green Party. The next step is to look at how to improve on the media coverage, get a larger voice for us. For the last few weeks the media attitude has not been right."