Five Arrested on ‘Conspiracy to Defraud’ in Labour Area After Britain’s Local Elections

Allegations that fake candidates were stood at this month’s British local elections to split the vote have been followed by a series of arrests, with Manchester Police stating they are working with the Electoral Commission to investigate “conspiracy to defraud”.

Greater Manchester Police arrested five people, four men and a women between the ages of 23 and 47, in the Tameside area over “suspicion of conspiracy to defraud as part of an investigation into alleged offences committed leading up to the local elections” on Thursday. The force said in a statement they became aware in the run up to this month’s vote of “concerns about candidates” in the St Peter’s Ward, a local government district in Ashton-under-Lyne, the area represented in the national Parliament by prominent Labour politician Angela Rayner.

Police further said: “The work is specifically investigating the process of how candidates were put forward and represented in the