Poem for a Condemned Man – Tony Greenstein’s Imminent Execution

Kevin Higgins writes a poem on my ‘execution’

Kevin Higgins is the poem who got himself suspended from the Labour Party for writing a satirical poem about everyone’s favourite war criminal -  Tony Blair!

Kevin Higgins

Tony Greenstein

Labour Against the Witchhunt Under Attack Over Lansman’s Bid to Become the New McNicol

Has Momentum’s Dictator No Shame?

What you may ask is the world coming to?  

There was a time when the genteel and bourgeois classes used to frighten the children telling them that if they didn’t go to sleep they would fetch Jon Lansman to have a quiet word with them.  

Nowadays the property developer from Momentum seems to be the toast of all the best St James Gentleman’s Clubs.  From the Garrick to the Reform Club, Jon Lansman has been seen as all that is standing between revolution and our way of life.

Wes Streeting the 'Labour' MP who leapt to Lansman's defence

If yesterday it was Progress’s allegedly Labour MP Wes Streeting who leapt to Lansman’s defence when Labour Against the Witchhunt criticised him, today it is Guido Fawkes, the Tory blogger himself.  

What next?  The Queen will be  making Sir Jon Lansman the Knight of someone’s garter.

Someone remind me what those 5 questions of Tony Benn were 

Tony Benn would be horrified if he knew what had happened to his protege

“What power have you got?”

“Where did you get it from?”

“In whose interests do you use it?”

“To whom are you accountable?”

“How do we get rid of you?”

The last one is particularly important as Momentum's Constitution seems designed to perpetuate Lanman's reign until he dies or becomes senile.

Tony Greenstein

JOIN LABOUR AGAINST THE WITCHHUNT

Open Letter to Labour’s NEC – How Long will the Chakrabarti Report be Ignored?

Why, after over 19 months, has Labour’s not Implemented the Chakrabarti Report Proposals for a fair Disciplinary Procedure?

I have been expelled on the basis of charges that relate solely to allegations and material that surfaced after I was suspended on March 18th 2016.  In paragraph 102 of the Skeleton Argument of the Labour Party's barrister, Thomas Ogg, be states:

102. All of the charges relate to conduct after Mr Greenstein's suspension from theLabour Party on 18 March 2016.

In other words I was suspended first and then the Compliance Unit looked around for evidence.  If that happened in a bourgeois court the charges would be thrown out for abuse of process.  In the Guidelines to the National Constitutional Committee, Appendix 6 Clause 6D Procedural matters at NEC or CLP level states:

i. The rules under which the NCC operates make it clear that the NCC and its panels are concerned only with the charge(s). The procedures adopted on behalf of the Party or a CLP in advance of a referral to the NCC are not matters for the NCC dealing with a particular case. The NCC is entitled to (and will) act on the basis that the charges are properly brought before them and cannot become embroiled in dealing with complaints about the administration of any investigation leading to the charges. Any such complaint will therefore not be entertained by the NCC or panel thereof unless it is material or relevant to the consideration of the evidence to be used by the presenter in support of the charges.

This is what I have termed the 'Turning a blind eye' clause.  Whatever the injustices perpetrated by Sam Matthews and the Compliance Unit, the NCC is obliged to ignore it except of course that in Chapter 9, Clause IX (4) the Rule Book lays down an obligation on the Labour Party to be fair:

4. The NCC or any panel thereof in hearing and determining charges against an individual shall have regard to procedural guidelines as determined by the NCC. The NCC shall have the power to supplement such guidelines from time to time and to modify its procedures in order to meet the circumstances of any particular case to ensure fairness to both the individual and the Party.

Below is a letter from members of the Labour Party in Holborn & St Pancras and Hampstead & Kilburn asking why, 19 months later, the Chakrabarti Report’s recommendations on a fair disciplinary process have not been implemented.

The Chakrabarti Report has gathered dust for the past 19 months as the Labour Right cannot openly oppose its recommendations on natural justice and fair process

We have seen Labour Parties such as Brighton and Hove and Wallasey suspended on the basis of outright lies.  See Warren Morgan, Emma Daniels & The Spitting Incident That Never Was - The Lies that led to the Overturning of Elections & the Suspension of Brighton & Hove Labour Party [see Labour party's tensions between left and right in focus in Brighton]

Brighton and Hove were suspended solely because, having lost democratic elections to Momentum candidates, the Right invented false allegations of spitting and intimidation.  In Wallasey, after the attempted coup by 172 MPs, Angela Eagle became the challenger to Corbyn. Wallasey CLP made it clear that they were going to back Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party headquarters responded by suspending the party.  The pretext was false accusations of homophobia which apparently took place at an AGM.  Now, after the dust has died down, these allegations have been quietly dropped because of course they were always without substance. 

The late and unlamented Iain McNicol and his servants were happy to suspend whole parties for the benefit of Progress and the 172 PLP traitors on the basis of outright lies.  We had the spectacle of the Disputes Committee investigator in Brighton, Katherine Buckingham refusing to look at the video of the alleged spitting incident on ‘data protection’ grounds.  The real reason was, of course, that it proved that the original allegations of spitting at the front entrance were complete lies and that Councillors Warren Morgan and Emma Daniels who made the original allegations were liars.

The Letter that Anne Black, recently deposed Chair of the Disputes Committee, sent to the suspended Brighton & Hove Labour Party - from the beginning Black assumed that the allegations were true, as can be seen in her final sentence

The Chakrabarti Report on Racism and Anti-Semitism in the Labour Party has gathered dust for over 18 months.  It made a comprehensive series of recommendations, basic principles that every court of law in the country takes for granted.  However for McNicol, the Compliance Unit and Labour’s civil service, the idea of according people accused of offences under the Labour Party constitution the basic right of knowing who your accusers are, what the charges are and the evidence against you is unthinkable.  These petty bureaucrats, who would not have been out of place in Stalin's Rusia, invent allegations against those they suspend and ‘auto exclude’ for naked political reasons on the flimsiest of pretexts.  The last thing they want are any written procedures.  Fairness doesn’t come in to it.   That is why the Chakrabarti recommendations have been comprehensively ignored.

One of the demands of Labour Against the Witch-hunt is that Chakrabarti is now implemented and we expect the  now left Labour NEC to do exactly that.

Katherine Buckingham sent out the above email but her real job was to ensure that the original decision to suspend Brighton & Hove Party was vindicated

Tony Greenstein

Letter to Labour's National Executive Committee

Sisters and Brothers

We have waited for 19 months for the Chakrabarti Enquiry’s recommendations to be put into practice, and give our party the fair disciplinary procedures it needs and deserves.  We hope that the NEC will make a start today by clearing David Watson of unfounded charges and letting him return to Walthamstow where he was a valued officer.

We have seen so many good comrades across the Labour Party suspended on the basis of anonymous accusations, and still waiting to be reinstated. There have been waves of factional purges which are shameful in a democratic party. First members were accused of being Green, then trade union militants, then antisemites and then transphobic. Accusations seem to have come down most heavily on people of colour, thus further excluding them from our party which we say that we want to reflect the society we live in.

We are all members of the Labour Party in Holborn & St Pancras and Hampstead & Kilburn. Many of us have Jewish heritage.  We are concerned for Labour in future government to have a real ethical foreign policy including international co-operation and fair trade. This includes confronting the internationally condemned actions of the state of Israel and reining in its unfair trade privileges, creating equal rights for Palestinian citizens and more. We strongly deny that supporting the international nonviolent campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions is antisemitic, or that questioning the colonising actions of Israel shows that the Labour Party harbours hatred of Jews. This is not our experience.

We are still waiting for suspended active members like David Watson to get a fair hearing and be reinstated. We need their abilities to win the next election.

23 January 2018

Signed (in alphabetical order)

Ruth Appleton, Highgate branch, GC delegate from Unite

Simon Burton, Kings Cross branch

Prof Miriam E David, Highgate branch

Daphne Davies, Kings Cross branch

Harriet Evans, Vice-Chair, Highgate branch

Pete Firmin, CWU delegate, Hampstead & Kilburn CLP

Sam Gisagara, BAME officer, Camden Town with Primrose Hill branch

Alice Gray, Camden Town with Primrose Hill branch

Owen Holland, Bloomsbury & Kings Cross branch

Agnes Kory, Hampstead & Kilburn CLP

Richard Kuper, Political Education & Training officer, Highgate branch

Marie Lynam, West Hampstead & Fortune Green branch, GC delegate GMB

Bernard Miller, Gospel Oak branch

Moshe Machover, Queen’s Park branch

Tom Muirhead, Hampstead & Kilburn CLP

Gareth Murphy, Kentish Town branch, GC delegate from Unite

Barbara Rosenbaum, Camden Town with Primrose Hill branch

Jo Rostron, Camden Town with Primrose Hill branch

Linda Sayle, GC delegate, Kings Cross & Bloomsbury branch

Amanda Sebestyen, GC delegate, Camden Town with Primrose Hill branch

Prof Tom Selwyn, Vice Chair, Camden Town with Primrose Hill branch

The Battle of McNicol’s Succession – Open Letter to Jon Lansman

Labour Against the Witchhunt, the LRC and John McDonnell all say SUPPORT JENNY FORMBY

Front-runner in battle to become Labour Party General Secretary

both Corbyn and McDonnell back Jenny Formby

Jon Lansman is now effectively the candidate of the Right

Lansman's Weasel Words

Letter to an old friend, Jon Lansman, re General Secretary of the Labour Party

Dear Jon,

As one of your most devoted and dedicated supporters, sycophantic to a fault, it is with great reluctance that I write to you concerning your bid to become Labour’s next General Secretary. 

As you will know I supported you tirelessly in your efforts to establish the Leadership principle [Führerprinzip] in Momentum.  No longer would subordinates and local groups of troublemakers and ne'er do wells be able to thwart or question your motives and decisions.  I also supported your adoption of rule by plebiscite, digitally modernised of course, thus replacing democracy with consultation by the Leader.  People would be able to vote on any number of the proposals you put before them but of course they wouldn't be able to set the agenda themselves.

Candidate of the Right - GMB's Lisa Johnson

I particularly welcomed your removal of that upstart and all round troublemaker, the self-proclaimed martyr Jackie Walker and her replacement with the much more agreeable and pliable Cecile Wright.  Even now Walker is going round declaring that she is the victim of a lynching and indeed a member of the chosen people.  Well you did chose her of course rather than going through the tiresome process of elections but that was why it was within your gift to replace her when she became too difficult.

Together with that paragon of virtue and a most wonderful and edifying example of honesty, integrity and self-sacrifice in public life, our mutual friend Jeremy Newmark, your tactic of accusing potential critics of antisemitism, especially Jewish critics, was highly innovative to say nothing of being useful.  There's nothing like a whiff of antisemitism to frighten the children.

It is a matter of deep sadness that Jeremy has become the subject of accusations that he made off with large chunks of the funds of the organisations he worked for.  I don’t know about you but I’m sure that lying at the heart of these accusations is our old friend ‘anti-Semitism’.

Despite my loyalty to you Jon,  I was rewarded with your description of me as ‘“probably the rudest person I know in politics. He says many offensive things, most of the time”.  As you know my only quarrel with your assessment was over the words ‘probably’ which implied that you might harbour some doubt about the matter.  Indeed I expressed my gratitude to you that you had only accused me of saying offensive things ‘most’ as opposed to all of the time.

It is therefore with a heavy heart that I have to tell you of my profound misgivings about your bid to become General Secretary of the Labour Party.  Please do not feel offended if I tell you that you are a worthy successor to my old friend Crooked McNicol.  I am sure you will do your best to live up to the great example he established in suppressing democracy and free speech in the Labour Party.  Indeed your success in removing the last vestiges of democracy and self-organisation within Momentum suggest that you would be the continuity candidate, living up to the fine traditions set by McNicol, .

However I do harbour fears nonetheless.  The first is that having only just been elected to Labour’s NEC it might be a bit too soon for you to become the de facto leader of the party.  I realise that you are the owner of Momentum but the Labour Party isn't quite like that.

My second reservation concerns your statement on Twitter that you would like to encourage more women to apply.  Forgive me if I’m a bit slow or not understanding something, but isn’t Jenny Formby, the other candidate, a woman?  She was last time I looked.  Perhaps she has undergone gender reassignment?  In which case surely she is even more deserving of our support?

I can only assume that there is something else about Jenny that you take exception to but, like the modest person I have always known you to be, you are too reticent to speak about it in polite company.  It is being whispered, in what used to be called smoke-filled rooms, that she supports the Palestinians and isn’t too hot on Zionism (for which read anti-Semitism) unlike McNicol who was the hero of Labour’s Apartheid lobby.

Of course if you did get the position Jon it would mean the ghastly Eddy Izzard taking your place and I’m sure that can’t be your wish.  Do I detect a certain Machiavellianism on your part?  Like John Silkin at the time of the Benn Deputy Leadership campaign, your role is that of the spoiler.  A trojan horse no less. It’s not that you want the post but you don’t want Jenny to have it. 

In the circumstances and with great reluctance, I fear that this is one battle that you will have to fight on your own although I understand that that hero of working class struggle, Wes Streeting MP, has offered to become your campaign manager.

With the kindest of regards,

Tony Greenstein

Unsurprisingly Jenny has been a victim of false 'antisemitism' attacks from the Right

Sick making tribute to Iain McNicol from Stella Creasy, who has refused to disown racist comments about Jackie Walker from her partner Dan Fox

The Plotting Begins

The battle lines are being drawn.  The Labour Representation Committee has come out firmly in support of Jenny Formby as the next General Secretary of the Labour Party. 

Likewise Labour Against the Witchhunt has issued a statement in support of Jenny Formby. Why Labour Against the Witchhunt cannot support Jon Lansman’s Labour Party general secretary bid. 

Immediately Progress MP Wes Streeting immediately tweeted his condemnation of LAW:  

‘every decent Labour member should condemn this attack on Jon Lansman’!  In other words Lansman is the effective candidate of the Right or, the Trojan horse who is being used to smuggle in as General Secretary a candidate of the Right.  By splitting the vote of the Left on the NEC Lansman is intending to let in  a rightwing successor to McNicol.  

If Lansman persists in this he will not be forgiven easily.  Unite, Jenny’s union, has given its unequivocal backing to her in a statement.  Jennie's own statement is here:  See also Huff Post, which with the Guardian is Lansman's favourite cesspit to leak to. Momentum's Jon Lansman Emerges As Possible Successor To Iain McNicol As Labour General Secretary

Join Labour Against the Witchhunt and help the fightback against the witchhunt and Labour careerists

EXCLUSIVE – MISCARRIAGE OF JUSTICE - British State exacts revenge on Socialist Trade Union & Socialist Coalition

The CPS refused ‘in the public interest’ to Prosecute Tory Party in Election Expenses Scandal but TUSC's Chris Fernandez is Gaoled for 15 months for Trivial Electoral Offence

Christopher Fernandez - TUSC election agent gaoled for 16 months by a judiciary and legal system that turns a blind eye to Tory election frauds

You may remember those 20 Tory MPs who overspent and underdeclared their expenses when it came to filing their electoral returns. Only one of them is facing a trial.  Local expenses such as hotel bills for activists bussed in, were charged to national rather than local expenses limits in a deliberate attempt to get round spending limits.

A prosecution was not however deemed to be ‘in the public interest’  even though the electoral returns ‘may have been inaccurate’.  Of course we will never know how inaccurate these limits were as the Establishment, in the form of the Crown Prosecution Service and its reactionary head, Alision Saunders refused to prosecute.

However when it came to an election agent for the socialist Trade Union & Socialist Coalition, Chris Fernandez, who was found guilty of misleading people who sign a candidates proposal form, then a swingeing 16 months sentence was handed out.  Chris denies the allegation and argues that he took petitions about the closure of a swimming pool with him in order to demonstrate what TUSC stood for.

No one suggests that Chris Fernandez forged the signatures.  Bob Spink, a UKIP candidate and ex-Tory MP was convicted of the same offence. He received a 6 months suspended sentence.  Other agents and candidates who have forged peoples’ signatures have got off with a caution.

What is amazing is that the Police, who are always telling us that when it comes to rape and violence against the person, don’t have enough resources yet they were able to visit all 80 electors who nominated TUSC candidates several times.

We should support the demand for Chris Fernandez to  be freed on bail and for his sentence to be reduced to a non-custodial one at worst.

For a detailed analysis of the trial see TUSC's Report on the Derby court case involving a TUSC local election agent

Tony Greenstein

Image copyright PA Image caption Mr Spink, from Benfleet, Essex, was Conservative MP for Castle Point from 1992 to 1997, and again from 2001 - despite being convicted of the same offence he received a 6 months suspended sentence

Outrageous sentence for TUSC agent in ‘misleading electors’ court case

Chris Fernandez, the local election agent for eight Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) candidates at the 2016 council elections in Derby, was sentenced on 13 February to 15 months imprisonment for ‘electoral fraud’.  Chris had been found guilty of misleading voters into signing the TUSC candidates’ nomination papers.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) argued that many electors had signed believing that they were backing a petition against the closure of Derby’s Moorways swimming pool and not a local election nomination form.

It is important to understand that there was no question of votes being fraudulently cast, of ballot papers being interfered with, of people’s right to vote how they wish being denied, of impersonation of voters, or postal ballot irregularities; no public money was misspent.

It was purely a question of the formal process which enables candidates to appear on ballot papers in local elections.  That is why the comments of the trial judge, Peter Cooke, that this case ‘strikes at the heart of our democracy’, were ludicrous. 

Candidates for the Scottish parliament, the Welsh assembly and the Greater London authority regional list seats can all self-nominate without having to collect signatures.  Do these elections ‘strike at our democracy’? 

A 15-month prison sentence is totally disproportionate, even if the offences had been proven beyond reasonable doubt.  But what is most disturbing about this case is that there was, in fact, plenty of doubt. 

Eight candidates stood for the TUSC in the 2016 elections for positions on Derby City Council

TUSC National Election Agent Clive Heemskerk attended the trial and has raised serious questions about the CPS’s case which, unfortunately, were not addressed in the trial.

These include:

• There is no statutory test that canvassers are expected to make to ensure that ‘subscribers’ to nomination papers have ‘sufficiently understood’ what it is they have signed.  But the CPS, unchallenged in court, set the bar not far from the level of a Mastermind contestant;
• There is no statutory or even informal guidance on what political campaign material canvassers can or cannot take with them when they collect signatures for nomination papers and the closure of the pool was a burning local political issue;
• There was no discussion in court on what responsibility people have for their own actions when they sign a form headed, ‘Local government election – Nomination Paper’, which includes two declarations that the person signing is agreeing to nominate an election candidate;
• There was no questioning of the role of the police, yet officers visited the 80 electors who nominated the TUSC candidates, sometimes on two or three occasions, and spent more time with them than Chris Fernandez did!  How did that shape what people remembered from their earlier encounter with Chris?

As Chris begins his prison sentence it is impossible not to draw the contrast between the Crown Prosecution’s approach to this case and that of the Conservative Party’s ‘Battle Bus’ 2015 general election expenses scandal.

The Tories’ extra spending then on the 20 or so marginal seats involved may well have made the difference in their winning the election and everything that has followed from that.

Yet in the ‘Battle Bus’ case, while the CPS accepted that Tory candidates’ election returns ‘may have been inaccurate’ and therefore breaking election law, they decided it was ‘not in the public interest to charge anyone’.  Who said what on the doorstep during a municipal election in Derbyshire was obviously of greater concern! 

No Conservatives will face charges for breaches of expenses rules over the 2015 general election "battle bus"

The vindictive and disproportionate political prosecution of Chris Fernandez should not cower trade unionists, socialists and working class community activists or stop them from taking their battle against austerity and for a new society into the ballot box.  This was one case, with specific circumstances, tried in one court.  It does not establish ‘case law’, applicable to any other possible instance in the future.    

Chris Fernandez himself, when asked by the prosecution barrister whether he  supported democracy, replied that yes, the working class has always fought for the right for political representation, from the Levellers in the English revolution to the 19th century Chartists, and is still fighting today.  That should be the main message from this trial.

The full report on the trial, challenging the CPS case in close detail, is available here

Letters of support can be sent to Chris Fernandez (21-12-1957), A5447ED, B-wing, HMP Nottingham, 112 Perry Road, Sherwood, Nottingham, NG5 3AG.  The envelope should include your name and address on the back. 

The wider picture

Since 2008 the Electoral Commission and the police have collated over 2,000 cases of alleged electoral fraud. Just one referred to a possible charge regarding “a voter [being] tricked into signing a nomination form for a candidate under false pretences”.  But there is no record of an attempted prosecution in this case.  In fact, all the publicly available records of convictions for nomination offences since 2008 have been for cases of false signatures or candidate ineligibility.

Until now. 

Just weeks before the Chris Fernandez trial the ex-Tory MP for Castle Point in Essex, Bob Spink, who defected from the Tories in 2008 to become UKIP’s first MP (he lost his seat in 2010), was found guilty of ‘tricking voters into signing nomination forms believing they were petitions’ in the 2016 local elections.  So, no convictions, or attempted prosecutions for this offence (at least since the public records begin in 2008), and then two come along at once.  Is there something going on?

What were the CPS thinking?

Bob Spink was formally charged in March 2017, the same month as Chris Fernandez was charged in Derby.  In both cases, while local police officers collected the evidence, it was the decision of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) whether or not to proceed to court. 

Only a very small proportion of cases of alleged electoral fraud resulted in court action.  The publicly available police commentaries include many instances of prima facie breaches of electoral law which were “locally resolved” or “suitable advice given”.  In 2014, for example, a clear breach of electoral law in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea did not go to prosecution on the grounds that it was “not in the public interest as he [the candidate] was not elected”.  In 2016 a Tory election agent in Preston forged signatures on eight candidate nomination forms and “accepted a police caution”.

Clamping down on dissent

But perhaps the most important ‘interest test’ for the CPS tops – in Derby as in the ‘Battle Bus’ case – wasn’t actually a ‘public’ one but how best to look out for their own careers by appeasing their government masters.  This is not to say that the decision to prosecute Chris Fernandez was a ‘Tory conspiracy’ against TUSC (or, for that matter, against their UKIP enemies in the Bob Spink case).  But the Tories, as part of battening down the hatches against the accumulating rage at never-ending austerity, are clamping down on democratic rights.

This includes attacks on electoral rights, many of them emanating from the recommendations of the 2016 review, led by the former Conservative Party chairperson Sir Eric Pickles, including a call to prevent “sham nominations and ensure that nominations are validly made”.

The government response to Pickles on this issue is that it will consider giving council Returning Officers greater powers to reject nominations. But in the meantime there’s no harm in sending a message to council officers (and ambitious Police Economic Crime Unit officers and Crown Prosecutors) to make life as difficult as possible for protest candidates and others outside the establishment circles.

The nomination process in local elections is already an obstacle course for inexperienced campaigners and smaller parties.  Even getting hold of the electoral register to collect the necessary ten subscribers, for example, is not a straightforward task. 

Once someone has officially become a candidate they are entitled to a copy of the register of electors for the ward.  But the earliest someone officially becomes a candidate is when the official notice of election is published, just six working days before nominations have to be submitted. 

Bob Crow speaking at TUSC's 2012 London Assembly election campaign launch

Many council electoral services departments will release a copy of the electoral register to someone declaring themselves as a candidate or election agent before the official notice of election, once they have signed a legal form stating that they will only use the register for electoral purposes.  But some Returning Officers do not give the same leeway to local TUSC candidates and agents as they do the establishment parties.  Now they might feel further encouraged to be obstructive.

But events are moving against them

The CPS announced that they would not proceed with the Conservative ‘Battle Bus’ case on May 10th, when the 2017 general election was under way and just days after the Tories’ triumph in the local elections.  Predictions of a 100-plus seat Tory majority in the forthcoming June poll were widespread.  It was obvious to anyone why the CPS tops took the decision that they did at the time that they did.

But, like almost all the establishment, they were to be completely confounded by events.  Just five weeks later the rage that has been simmering away since the 2008 crash found an electoral outlet in the surge of support for Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-austerity message.

That process – of finding a vehicle for working class politics – is not over.  The Blairites – the capitalist establishment’s representatives within the Labour Party – are clinging on tenaciously to their positions, in parliament and in town halls.  Some on the left argue that Labour Party candidates should be supported regardless of whether they are ‘Corbynistas’ or Blairites. But it is also the case that some activists will decide to stand under an independent banner against the Labour right-wing cutters.  That is a debate for the working class: it won’t be stopped by servants of the ruling class creating bureaucratic obstacles.

See also:

No charges over 2015 Conservative battle bus cases

Derby election campaigner jailed for election fraud

Bob Spink handed suspended sentence over election fraud

TUSC chair Dave Nellist pays tribute to Bob Crow

Bob Spink told the court he had collected more than 1,000 signatures in his career - unlike socialist Chris Fernandez he received a 6 month suspended sentence

An ex-Tory and UKIP MP has been given a suspended six-month prison term after being convicted of election fraud.

Bob Spink, 69, former MP for Castle Point, Essex, committed the offences during the Castle Point borough council elections in May last year.

He was found guilty in December of four counts of permitting a false signature to be included on a nomination form for a UKIP councillor.

The judge in the case said the offences undermined "democratic structures".

Spink's prison sentence will be suspended for two years. He was also ordered to carry out 150 hours unpaid work.

Image copyright PA Image caption UKIP agent James Parkin was also given a suspended prison sentence

UKIP's election agent at the time, James Parkin, 39, of Canvey Island, who was also convicted of two counts of the same charge and had admitted two, received the same sentence at Basildon Crown Court on Friday.

Both men were ordered to pay £5,000 each towards the cost of the case.

During the trial last year, jurors heard how Spink tricked "elderly and infirm" voters into signing the forms in April 2016, without making it clear what the documents were or which party he represented.

The court heard people in Spink's constituency signed the forms believing they were petitions and had no idea they were supporting the UKIP candidate in the local council elections.

Spink had claimed everything was above board and that residents knew what they were signing.

None of the candidates included in Spink's deception won a seat on the council - although a handful finished runner-up, the court heard.

Sentencing the pair Judge Ian Graham said: "This sort of offending undermines the working of democratic structures in this country.

"The democratic process depends on the good faith of those who engage in it, because a lot of what happens is of course quite difficult to police."

Spink, from Benfleet, Essex, was Conservative MP for Castle Point from 1992 to 1997, and again from 2001.

In 2008, he defected from the Conservative Party and joined UKIP, effectively becoming its first MP.