Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general, has said fraud at elections is a “growing phenomenon” in Britain that is taking place in communities “in which there is a tradition of electoral corruption and fraud in their home countries”.



Speaking at Politeia’s fringe meeting at the Conservative party’s annual conference, the senior Tory warned that although it had affected Labour mainly, as his party became more successful it too would be blighted. Grieve said electoral fraud is found “where there are high levels of inhabitants from a community in which there is a tradition of electoral corruption in their home countries”.

He said: “The more successful the Tory party is, the more risk it will affect us and if we lay down the ground rules now we will thanked, particularly by those people who have come from countries where, I am afraid, there is an endemic tradition of corruption.”



Grieve wants Northern Ireland-style checks to be brought in to combat fraud – which would mean voters having to produce identification papers to register their intention to vote by post and having to justify their decision to the authorities.



He said: “I am puzzled why there is so much resistance in the political class for these changes. I know we want to maximise the number of people who vote. I am all in favour of that. But there is no point in creating a fake participation that masquerades as the real thing.”

Although in the past he apologised for singling out the British Pakistani community, Grieve said it was not about any one group. He cited evidence from the electoral commission earlier this year that said all the main political parties had been accused of exploiting networks within British Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities to harvest votes.

The former cabinet minister said that the removal of Lutfur Rahman as Tower Hamlets mayor by the high court should be a “wake up call” for the country.

Rahman, who was born in Bangladesh, was banned from holding public office for five years and the election re-run earlier this year after a devastating judgment that concluded his win had been secured with the help of the following “corrupt and illegal practices”: the payment of canvassers; the false portrayal of his Labour rival, John Biggs, as racist; the allocation of grants in a manner that amounted to bribery; the offence of bringing “undue spiritual influence” to bear on Muslim voters; and the casting of invalid votes.

Whitehall in denial over extent of UK election fraud, says Eric Pickles Read more

Grieve said he had become aware of the problem more than a decade ago when Iain Duncan Smith had been Tory leader and had asked him to look at attracting ethnic minorities to the Tory cause. He then became aware of how party associations were often in thrall to local “Mr Bigs” and alarmed at reports of various postal voting scams.

The Tory MP says his concerns have been vindicated in part by the government’s appointment of a anti-corruption tsar – Sir Eric Pickles – to tackle the problem. Pickles, the former communities secretary, said that Whitehall was in denial about the extent of electoral fraud and rotten boroughs in Britain, and is to head a unit in the Cabinet Office examining the extent of electoral fraud. He will report back to the prime minister by the end of the year about possible changes to the law.

Grieve said a victim culture was at the root of the problem, where communities felt they could overcome society’s “disadvantage” to get political power.

This, he said, was at the “very root of electoral corruption. It is the belief that you can only by using a ‘favours culture’ and manipulating the system get the outcome which reflects your status as a group within a community. That is why it is so important that, as politicians in a democratic society, we should speak out against it because it is insidiously corrupting. Once you get into the habit of this then another group will say they are disadvantaged unless they start behaving in a similar manner.”