Claims cousin marriages are driving unlawful ‘household voting’ as police are urged to analyze by-election fraud allegations in crushing Green victory
The row over allegations of voter fraud in the Gorton and Denton by-election deepened today after a leading academic claimed that the practice of cousin marriages was a key driver of illegal ‘family voting’.
Oxford-based academic Dr Patrick Nash argued that there was a strong correlation between family voting – where a man enters the polling booth with his wife or daughters to tell her how to vote – and marriages between blood relations in the local Muslim community.
It has been claimed that as many as one in eight votes cast in the by-election – which was won by the Green Party’s Hannah Spencer – could be attributed to group voting.
Police have been urged to investigate ‘clear evidence’ of voter fraud in the Manchester by-election amid warnings that Britain is ‘sleepwalking into sectarian politics’.
The Greens Party’s Spencer cruised to victory for the Greens in the previously safe Labour seat of Gorton and Denton.
Labour was pushed into third place, a humiliating result for Keir Starmer which triggered fresh calls for him to resign.
But Ms Spencer’s historic win was immediately mired in allegations of sectarianism after the Greens targeted the constituency’s large Muslim population with messages about the war in Gaza.
Election observers reported record levels of so-called ‘family voting’ – an illegal practice often involving a man entering the polling booth with his wife to tell her how to vote.
The Green Party’s Hannah Spencer won a crushing victory in the contest, securing 40.7 per cent of the ballot
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage referred reports of so-called family voting to Greater Manchester Police
Soon after the polls closed, the independent group Democracy Volunteers issued a rare report to warn that as many as one in eight votes cast may have been affected by the practice, which is a criminal offence and carries a prison sentence.
Nigel Farage, whose Reform UK party trailed the Greens by 4,402 votes, said Ms Spencer’s triumph was a ‘victory for sectarian voting and cheating’.
Mr Farage also called on the Electoral Commission to investigate.
‘What was witnessed yesterday is deeply concerning and raises serious questions about the integrity of the democratic process in predominantly Muslim areas,’ he said. ‘If this is what was happening at polling stations just imagine the potential for coercion with postal votes.’
Kemi Badenoch said Labour had ‘created the monster of harvesting Muslim community bloc votes’ at previous elections, adding: ‘That monster came back to bite them.’
The Tory leader said the rise of sectarian politics was starting to ‘unravel the culture of tolerance that makes Britain great’.
She accused the Greens of running ‘a nasty, sectarian campaign while simultaneously wanting to legalise crack cocaine’. Greens leader Zack Polanski denied fuelling sectarianism.
Today Dr Nash, who estimates that up to 50 per cent of the Muslim community in the constituency practise cousin marriage, told the Mail: said: ‘Electoral fraud is typically perpetrated by South Asian Muslim clans and higher rates of cousin marriage are a good predictor of high rates of fraud allegations.
Green Party leader Zack Polanski with new MP Hannah Spencer at a press conference in Manchester yesterday
These clans are routinely courted by the Labour party to deliver bloc votes in exchange for lucrative local authority contracts and prestigious official positions. Wherever clans are a major electoral force, corruption and sectarian violence follow. There is a pressing need for a cross-party agreement to break up these toxic mafia families by banning cousin marriage and strengthening our electoral safeguards.’
Authorities have already drawn a link between grooming gangs and cousin marriage. Baroness Casey said that ‘two thirds of suspects offended within unsophisticated and informal groups – mainly being brothers or cousins.’
Because the unions enforce ‘strict patriarchal hierarchies’ held together by fathers and husbands – and are used to oppress women – this fuels the link between close-relative marriage and electoral fraud.
There are even claims of votes being exchanged for social or financial support through the cousin marriage network.
Lawyers have said that the current system is vulnerable to fraudsters because there is nothing to verify peoples’ ID when they sign up for postal votes.
Veteran electoral judge Richard Mawrey QC said because the system ‘operates under trust’ and assumes ‘both voters and officials are honest’ it is open to abuse. Critics have called for an urgent investigation into voting practices at the by-election, although the electoral commission has insisted that ‘there is no evidence of large-scale electoral fraud’.
