Suspicious Goings-On in the Election

Two incidents appear to have given rise to complaints to the police for breaches of election law.

The first concerns Rohima Rahman. You will recall that Rohima was suspended by the Labour Party some years back. It seems that she has been so keen to get elected again that she has been helping voters with their postal votes. If substantiated she might achieve a record for being suspended a second time, this time before the election.

Readers will recall that in the neighbouring borough of Tower Hamlets, the incumbent mayor and his supporters were found to have acted dishonestly and in breach of election law. Why this is relevant is that Rohima Rahman and Lutfer Rahman (no relation that we are aware of), both have built their profiles upon support within the Bangladeshi community. If, and it has to be said again, if it is the case that R. Rahman has been ‘helping’ Bangladeshi voters with their forms, contrary to election law, then we can expect the police to be very interested. 

We understand that a complaint has been made to the police.

We have previously mentioned that Rahman’s running mate in Beckton, sitting councillor James Asser has been the target of a campaign to unseat him. The Greens have been leading the campaign to challenge Labour in Beckton.

There seem to have been unattributed leaflets distributed amongst the Muslim community on Beckton urging votes against Asser on the basis of his sexuality. There is no suggestion that the Greens are behind this.

However, we understand that Labour has reported this as a hate crime activity to the police and are currently scouring CCTV to identify those who are delivering the said leaflets.