Election court told of bid 'to make white folk angry'

A FORMER Immigration Minister has been accused of stirring up racial and religious divisions as part of a desperate General Election campaign to "make the white folk angry".

A specially convened election court heard that Labour MP Phil Woolas and his campaign team set out to "galvanise the white Sun vote" against Liberal Democrat candidate Elwyn Watkins.

Mr Watkins has mounted a rare legal challenge to May's election result in Oldham East and Saddleworth, which Mr Woolas won by only 103 votes following two recounts.

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The Liberal Democrat aims to activate a rarely used clause in election laws to declare the result void and force a rerun.

Opening the case, Helen Mountfield QC said diary entries kept during the election by Mr Woolas showed he was "pretty convinced" he was going to lose.

He feared a national swing away from the ruling party, the expenses scandal and decisions made by him as an Immigration Minister which "may not have endeared him to some members of his constituency" would contribute to his downfall.

It was in such a context that false statements were made in three publications distributed on behalf of Mr Woolas in the lead-up to the election, she told the court.

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She said: "Mr Woolas's team had made an overt and, some may 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, to 'take Phil out' and then present Mr Watkins as in league with them.

"This was intended to galvanise the white Sun (reading) vote against him."

The court heard the campaign painted a picture of Muslim extremists looking to damn Mr Woolas and that he made a series of false statements.

Giving evidence, Mr Woolas denied there was anything deceitful contained in the three publications he approved.

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It was put to him that a photograph of Mr Watkins with two police officers, published following claims he paid his staff less than the minimum wage, had been doctored.

Mr Woolas said: "I would not use the word 'doctored'. It was a super-imposition with the purpose to expose what I saw as hypocrisy. I think the reader would be aware that it was an altered photo."

Two High Court judges are considering the case, which continues today at Saddleworth Civic Hall.

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