Anti-Corruption Ticket



The Times reports that the local campaigner, Andy Erlam, who helped bring down the corrupt former Tower Hamlets Mayor, Lutfur Rahman, is to stand for the office himself.

I would definitely campaign and vote for Andy Erlam if I could and I suspect that a dose of his Red Flag Anti-Corruption Party is just what Tower Hamlets needs right at this moment.

In the meantime, the ridiculous George Galloway attacks the decision to remove and tries to inflame Muslim sentiment with his public comments which is why the good people of Glasgow rejected this political carpetbagger at the last Scottish Parliament elections.  

Campaigner to stand for mayor


Oliur Rahman was removed from office by the High Court Daniel Leal-Olivas/PA


By Dominic Kennedy - The Times

The anti-corruption campaigner who brought down Britain’s first Muslim elected mayor announced yesterday that he will stand for the vacant post.

Andy Erlam, founder of the Red Flag Anti-Corruption Party, risked financial ruin to challenge Lutfur Rahman’s rigged victory which was overthrown by the High Court last week after a seven-week hearing.

Mr Erlam will stand against Labour’s John Biggs who was defeated by Mr Rahman by 3,000 votes last year. Labour failed to challenge the result of the mayoral election for the London borough of Tower Hamlets, leading the judge to speculate that the party might have been frightened of being accused of racism and Islamophobia.

George Galloway, the Respect Party founder and a former local MP, has yet to declare as he fights to retain his parliamentary seat in Bradford West but he launched an outspoken attack on the removal of Mr Rahman. Tower Hamlets First, Mr Rahman’s local party, remained silent.

Mr Rahman was removed from office by the High Court after an election petition brought by four local voters, led by Mr Erlam.

The court found the mayor had unlawfully intimidated the borough’s large Muslim population by saying it was their religious duty to vote for him.

Tower Hamlets council announced last week that one of Mr Rahman’s close allies, the deputy mayor Oliur Rahman, would run the authority until the fresh mayoral election in June. Sources at the authority told The Times it would be “business as usual”.

Mr Erlam reacted by declaring yesterday: “It’s not going to be ‘business-as-usual’ ever again at Tower Hamlets town hall. Many people have asked me to stand and I see the danger of one form of cronyism taking over from Rahman’s cronyism and corruption. The entire local government machine needs to be transformed. It’s the chance in our lifetimes to change everything for the better.”

He pledged to shut down the council’s propaganda newsletter, nicknamed “the Pravda of Rahman”, and end the borough’s cult of personality.

Mr Erlam accused the Metropolitan Police of protecting the corrupt ex-mayor and failing to investigate election fraud properly or corruption at the town hall at all. He claimed there was a strong corrupt network within the force.

Mr Biggs was chosen by the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party at the weekend to fight the mayoral contest again.

However the election judge Richard Mawrey, QC, had suggested Labour might have been cowardly by leaving it to Mr Erlam and three other local voters to bring the petition to overthrow Mr Rahman’s victory. Had they lost, they would have faced a devastating bill for costs which might have bankrupted them. The judge praised Mr Erlam and the other three petitioners for what he described as their very high, exemplary order of courage in the face of vilification.

He said Labour was the most likely beneficiary of the mayor’s removal. “It may be that, like so many others who have come up against Mr Rahman, the Party was not prepared to risk the accusations of racism and Islamophobia that would have been bound to follow any petition.”

Mr Galloway, an ally of Mr Rahman, tweeted a video of himself saying the mayor’s removal was absurd, offensive, utterly shameful and “a great affront to the Muslim population of Britain”. He said: “The move that the court has made will strike into the heart of Muslim involvement in British politics. It will terrify Muslims from becoming more involved in British politics.”

Popular posts from this blog

SNP - Conspiracy of Silence

LGB Rights - Hijacked By Intolerant Zealots!