The Mayor of Tower Hamlets has been kicked out of office. Lutfur Rahman was found guilty at a High Court hearing this morning of ‘corrupt and illegal practices’ and the result of the 2014 mayoral election has been voided. Rahman has to pay costs of £250,000 and has been barred from standing in the next election after Judge Richard Mawrey said he’d ‘driven a coach and horses through election law and didn’t care’.
The list of offences is long. Rahman has been found guilty of allocating grants to buy votes; his supporters were found to have been involved in the rigging of votes; he wrongly branded his Labour rival John Biggs a racist; his supporters attempted to seek a spiritual influence through local imams. One of his aides, Alibor Choudhury, was also found guilty of corruption and illegal electoral practices. His party, Tower Hamlets First, was ‘never really a party but the alter ego of Lutfur Rahman’.
As Britain’s first directly-elected Muslim mayor — and now the first to be removed from office — this verdict reflects badly on the Tories’ plan to bring in elected Mayors. But the Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said in a statement that the ‘judgment vindicates our action to intervene’ after he investigated the ‘dysfunctional mayoral administration’:
‘The police also need to take steps to stop further corrupt practices following this damning judgement. We must also challenge those who seek to spread further division in light of the ruling. There can be no place for rotten boroughs in 21st Century Britain.’
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson also welcomed the verdict, telling Guido:
‘I’m very glad that justice has taken it’s course and the cloud has been lifted from Tower Hamlets. It’s vital we move on with new elections’
The verdict is particularly embarrassing for the former Mayor of London Ken Livingstone. In November last year, Livingstone defended Rahman over the initial investigation conducted by Eric Pickles:
‘Eventually Lutfur Rahman will be re-admitted to the Labour Party once he’s eventually cleared of all these smears because he’s actually got one of the best records.
‘I’d take Eric Pickles to court. This is like something out of East Germany under the communists.’
So far, there’s no word from Livingstone over whether he is still backing Rahman. According to journalist Ted Jeory, who has been live tweeting the verdict, Judge Mawrey said Rahman acted ‘ruthlessly’ and silenced his critics by accusing them of Islamophobia. We’ll see if Rahman responds in a similar way to today’s judgement or slinks away in the knowledge that his political career has come to an end.
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