Mick Hartley

Yes, the Greens have control of Hackney and Lewisham. So what about Tower Hamlets? Well…

Scotland Yard is investigating election posters in Tower Hamlets after a complaint that they stirred up racial hatred of Jews.

The posters depicted a “monstrous characterisation” of a religious Jewish man in military uniform, with the text “Labour’s monsters”.

According to a report submitted to the Metropolitan Police, this was an alleged breach of the Public Order Act, because the image was “selected to appear menacing”.

The complaint added: “The monstrous characterisation is anchored specifically in Jewish religious identity markers, not Israeli military conduct generally. This stirs up hatred against Jewish people.”

The poster was one of a series attacking Labour that appeared around Shadwell station in the east London borough before Friday’s local elections.

Another targeted Sirajul Islam, Labour’s local mayoral candidate, who lost to Lutfur Rahman of the Aspire Party, the incumbent.

The police report noted that the “Labour’s monsters” poster did not “carry a printer’s imprint or the name and address of the promoter, as required by law”, making it a potential criminal offence under the Representation of the People Act.

Alex Hearn, of the campaign group Labour Against Anti-Semitism, urged the Electoral Commission to investigate.

He said that one of the posters – which stated that “Labour are complicit in genocide” – appeared to “frame the Labour Party as acting in the service of Israeli government policy”.

Mr Hearn said that this “activates the anti-Semitic trope of Jewish or Israeli control over Western political institutions”.

He added: “In an electoral district with a large Muslim population, this framing has the potential to inflame community tension by presenting political opponents not merely as wrong on policy but as agents of a foreign power associated with Jewish interests.”

Well yes. No need for the help of idiot leftists here – the red-green alliance championed by Zack Polanski and the Greens. Tower Hamlets is a straight Muslim ticket. They can come out with open Jew-hatred, fired up by the “Gaza genocide” libel.

On Friday, Mr Rahman, the Aspire leader, was re-elected as the Mayor of Tower Hamlets with almost 39 per cent of the vote.

Just over a decade ago, the Government was forced to take over key departments at the London borough of Tower Hamlets after a report accused Mr Rahman, who was also mayor at that time, of presiding over an administration that was “at best dysfunctional” and “at worst riddled with cronyism and corruption”.

A High Court judge ruled that Mr Rahman’s election in May 2014 had been secured with the help of bribery, intimidation, the casting of invalid votes and false statements about his rival. He has always denied the allegations.

He was banned from holding public office for five years, and then returned to the mayoralty in 2022 as the head of a new party he had set up, Aspire.

On Friday, Aspire won the Tower Hamlets council election with an overall majority. The party secured 23 of the first 31 seats to be declared, enough to take back control. Labour won four seats, the Greens two and the Liberal Democrats and Conservatives one each.