Jamais Vu 🏉

The Arrest. The Kitchen. The Questions Angela Rayner Must Now Answer. Five people were arrested on Thursday morning on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud. The allegation is that fake independent candidates were entered on the ballot for St Peter's ward in Tameside to split votes for opposition parties and deliver the seat to Labour. Greater Manchester Police confirmed the arrests and said they were working closely with the Electoral Commission. The arithmetic is not complicated. The Labour candidate won by 177 votes. The two alleged fake candidates received 291 votes between them. St Peter's was the only ward in Tameside to return a Labour councillor on May 7. Reform won the remaining 18. Without those alleged fake candidates on the ballot, the ward in all probability falls and Tameside returns no Labour councillors at all. St Peter's ward sits in the heart of Angela Rayner's Ashton-under-Lyne constituency. Rayner denies any involvement or awareness of the alleged plot. That denial is on the record and must be the starting point. She has not been arrested. She has not been charged. No evidence has been presented publicly that connects her personally to any decision. What has been reported, by the Manchester Mill and subsequently by the Telegraph, is that Philip Wilson-Marks, the former vice-chairman of the Ashton-under-Lyne Community Labour Party, has alleged he was approached twice about the fake candidate tactic. One of those approaches, he claims, took place in Rayner's kitchen. Rayner says the allegations have nothing to do with her and any suggestion of involvement or awareness is baseless. That statement must stand until evidence establishes otherwise. But the location claim is documented, attributed and on the public record. It cannot simply be set aside because it is inconvenient. There is also the matter of a leaked 2024 recording in which Rayner pleaded with Muslim voters in her constituency, acknowledging she could not have held her seat in 2019 without their support and promising Labour would do everything in its power on Gaza. St Peter's ward, where the alleged fraud occurred, has a significant Muslim population. The Labour candidate who allegedly benefited is Atta ul-Rasool, the former vice-chairman of the Ashton-under-Lyne Labour branch. The connection between Rayner's documented bloc vote cultivation and the ward where five people have now been arrested for alleged electoral fraud is not an allegation. It is a question the evidence requires to be asked. Rayner has been cleared by HMRC of wrongdoing over her stamp duty affairs in circumstances that independent tax experts describe as difficult to understand. A company incorporated fourteen months ago with £1 of capital, controlled by a former member of her staff according to Companies House records, donated £150,000 to her political office. Those questions have not been answered. Rayner is not responsible for the actions of every person associated with her local party. But the culture that allegedly produced those decisions is the culture of the political operation in her backyard. A party that has spent months accusing Reform of threatening democratic norms has five people under arrest for alleged conspiracy to defraud a local election in its own heartland. The questions are specific. When did she become aware of allegations about fake candidates. Whether anyone discussed the tactic with her or in her presence. What she intends to do about the culture that produced these arrests. Rayner resigned from government in the name of integrity. Integrity means answering those questions. The kitchen allegation is on the public record. The questions will not go away by themselves. "The Labour candidate who allegedly benefited is Atta ul-Rasool, the former vice-chairman of the Ashton-under-Lyne Labour branch."