The victor and the vanquished: 3

Agent Joe: everything we said was the truth
PHIL Woolas’s election agent branded the decision to strip him of his seat as an “absolute disgrace”.

And Joe Fitzpatrick, who had been the former Oldham East and Saddleworth’s MPs agent for 15 years, said he did not regret anything.

“Absolutely everything was true. As long as we speak the truth we have no reason to regret anything.”

During the election court, the prosecution said neither Mr Woolas nor Mr Fitzpatrick checked any of the facts they published about Mr Watkins and did not care about what they said about him.

They were alleged to have said that Mr Watkins had wooed the support of Muslim extremists to “get white folk Angry”.

Mr Fitzpatrick told the Oldham Chronicle: “The judges have no understanding of what happens in local politics and national politics.

“The reason we wanted to tell the ‘white folk’ what was happening was we thought it was disgusting that Watkins and his Liberal Democrat team should be using the extreme edge of the Islamic community.

“If we were pandering to the British National Party, and wanting the BNP to help us, that would be just disgusting.”

He added: “What particularly upsets me is the accusation that Phil Woolas was being racist. He hasn’t a racist bone in his body. He has worked hard for the Asian community.”

Mr Fitzpatrick believes that Tory Kashif Ali will win the seat and added: “At the election Kashif had about 5,000 votes from the Asian community, Phil got about 2,000 and Watkins got very few.

“Now that they know Kashif can win, and now Phil’s not standing, Kashif will start off with 7,000 votes from the Asian community.

“Some people would say it is racist to say that, I wouldn’t. All I am telling is the truth.”