LABOUR has threatened to report the Lib Dems to the POLICE over by-election “smear” tactics.
The party has sent a cease and desist letter alleging “cynical” behaviour against their candidate in the Mid-Bedfordshire contest.
Sir Keir Starmer hopes to pull off an historic upset next month by overturning a 24,000 Tory majority in Nadine Dorries‘ old seat.
But he believes his candidate’s chances are being damaged by a “smear campaign” Labour claims could even be illegal.
Top Labour MP Peter Kyle – who is leading the campaign – claimed the Lib Dems have “gone feral” and were “wallowing in the gutter”.
But the Lib Dems tonight shot back that his accusations amounted to nothing more than “dirty tricks”.
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Labour’s legal letter sent to the Lib Dems’ election agent accused them of committing two breaches of the Representation of the People Act.
The first relates to alleged “false statements” on campaign literature claiming their candidate Alistair Strathern does not live in the constituency and is a London councillor.
The letter states: “As you will be well aware, he has now resigned as a councillor in London and has relocated back to Shefford in Bedfordshire.”
It regards the material as “a deliberate and cynical attempt to damage the Labour Party candidate’s electoral prospects”.
Mr Strathern hit the headlines this summer when The Sun revealed he dressed as a zombie for a Greenpeace protest.
The furious Labour letter also accused the Lib Dems of “misleading” voters with a dodgy poll.
The party railed against “a misleading bar chart which shows a 7 per cent increase in voters polled favouring the Liberal Democrats against a 5 per cent increase for the Conservatives, thereby giving the impression that the Liberal Democrats are in first place in a neck-to-neck contest with the Conservatives”.
It adds: “However, this is incorrect as the Liberal Democrats are in fact in third place, behind both the Labour Party and the Conservatives.”
The letter to the Lib Dems election agent says the tactics “amounts to the corrupt practice of undue influence”.
Labour has demanded all existing leaflets are destroyed, and that they receive a written apology and retraction.
Their warning adds: “Failure to comply with our requests will result in a report being made to the Police and a referral made to the Director of Public Prosecutions.”
Mr Kyle tonight told The Sun: “The Lib Dem campaign has gone feral.”
He added: “While Labour focusses on a positive program to Mid Bedfordshire residents, the Lib Dems do nothing but fill people’s letterboxes with lies, smears and innuendo.”
Yet the Lib Dems responded by accusing Labour of a “desperate” ploy to derail their campaign
MP Helen Morgan said: “People in Mid Bedfordshire will be livid over Labour threats to waste police time, when locally people can’t remember the last time they saw a bobby on the beat.
“This is dirty tricks from a desperate Labour campaign that knows it cannot win Mid Bedfordshire.
“If Labour were serious about this by-election, they would not have picked a candidate who lived 50 miles away when selected, and until just a few days ago was an elected councillor in East London.
“The Liberal Democrat vote is surging in Mid-Bedfordshire and we now have the momentum to win this rural constituency.”
