{"id":261491,"date":"2016-08-13T01:11:10","date_gmt":"2016-08-13T01:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/tory-mp-pickles-faces-wrath-of-police-over-electoral-fraud-political-correctness-claims\/"},"modified":"2016-08-13T01:11:10","modified_gmt":"2016-08-13T01:11:10","slug":"tory-mp-pickles-faces-wrath-of-police-over-electoral-fraud-political-correctness-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/tory-mp-pickles-faces-wrath-of-police-over-electoral-fraud-political-correctness-claims\/","title":{"rendered":"Tory MP Pickles faces wrath of police over electoral fraud \u2018political correctness\u2019 claims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>        Sir Eric Pickles has provoked an angry response from the Metropolitan Police after an inquiry he carried out criticized their response to claims of election fraud, saying political correctness was partly to blame.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>The Tory MP said he was disappointed that following allegations of electoral fraud in the Tower Hamlets mayoral election in 2015 no legal charges were brought.<\/p>\n<p>The Met fired back on Friday, saying that they too were \u201c<em>disappointed that Sir Eric Pickles has expressed such views in relation to no prosecutions being brought for alleged election offenses in Tower Hamlets.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"900\" height=\"506\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rApbSv-6fTA\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<em>The suggestion that the MPS [Metropolitan Police Service] has somehow failed to take action is completely unfounded. We must work within the legislative framework set by government,<\/em>\u201d they said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Pickles also delivered a warning in his report that \u201c<em>political correctness<\/em>\u201d may stop authorities acting on possible fraud in the future.<\/p>\n<div class=\"arcticle__read-more read-more\">\n<p>Read more<\/p>\n<p>    <a class=\"read-more__link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/229547-mayor-brainwashed-islamists-labour\/\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n                    <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"read-more__cover\" src=\"https:\/\/img.rt.com\/files\/news\/38\/0a\/b0\/00\/mayor-brainwashed-islamists-labour.n.jpg\" alt=\"Lutfer Rahman, Mayor of Tower Hamlets. (Screenshot from youtube.com\/user\/ShaanLDN)\"\/><br \/>\n    <\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p>He said he had found evidence of &#8220;<em>pressure being put on vulnerable members of some ethnic minority communities, particularly women and young people, to vote according to the will of the elders, especially in communities of Pakistani and Bangladeshi background.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;<em>There were concerns that influence and intimidation within households may not be reported, and that state institutions had turned a blind eye to such behavior because of &#8216;politically correct&#8217; over-sensitivities about ethnicity and religion,<\/em>\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>He put forward a number of suggestions for how elections could be conducted in the future.<\/p>\n<p>These included a police presence at ballots to shield voters from intimidation, banning activists from handling postal votes and an increased role for the National Crime Agency \u2013 roughly equivalent to the American FBI \u2013 in investigating allegations.<\/p>\n<p>The inquiry began in 2015 after then-Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman was found guilty of electoral fraud by an Election Court.<br \/>The judge in the case said Rahman had \u201c<em>driven a coach and horses through election law and didn&#8217;t care.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Rahman was said to have given grants to faith groups in return for support. No criminal charges were brought due to &#8220;<em>insufficient evidence<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Via <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rt.com\/uk\/355675-election-fraud-political-correctness\/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=RSS\">RT<\/a>. This piece was reprinted by <a href=\"http:\/\/rinf.com\">RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission or license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sir Eric Pickles has provoked an angry response from the Metropolitan Police after an inquiry he carried out criticized their response to claims of election fraud, saying political correctness was partly to blame. The Tory MP said he was disappointed that following allegations of electoral fraud in the Tower Hamlets mayoral election in 2015 no [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":261492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-261491","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261491","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261491"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261491\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261491"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261491"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261491"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}