Neil Wilby Media

Democracy died another death in a famous old East Lancashire mill town yesterday evening.

Scenes of disgraceful disorder in the public gallery that marred meetings of the Council in Oldham last June and July were repeated and, this time, resulted in the Mayor, Dr Zahid Chauhan OBE, leading a walk-out from the civic chamber and the suspension of council business at around 8.30pm.

A brief attempt to resume proceedings in the same chamber was made around 20 minutes later, but was quickly halted when a member of the public shouted at a newly-elected Hollinwood councillor: ‘I hope your son gets raped and dies’.

The meeting was re-convened in another room in the Civic Centre, without the public present, at 9.05pm.

Mayor Chauhan said upon resumption: “I think it’s really important, as guardian of this chamber, that I should apologise to Cllr Kamran Ghafoor about your children – there’s no justification. It’s unacceptable.” Adding: “I don’t remember anything like that happening before, certainly not in my tenure”.

The public gallery was, yet again, dominated by a group whom self-style, appositely, as The Rabble (or Raja’s Rabble). A vile group, largely composed of cranks, political malcontents and anti-Labour Party axe-grinders, whom act out the violent, hateful and divisive narrative of a notorious, long-term unemployed, Tameside-based conspiracy theorist, Raja Miah.

Miah has the unusual distinction of being, separately, on conditional police and court bail over malicious communication and harassment allegations. He denies wrongdoing.

He is also facing a life-changing defamation claim issued by lawyers acting for Dr Chauhan over which he has admitted, on his various, disgraced Recusant Nine social media channels, that he faces losing his plush home in the upmarket commuter town, Mossley (read more here).

After the disrupted Oldham Council meetings in 2022, one person was prosecuted (read more here) and eleven others, including Raja Miah, were handed 12 month bans from the Civic Centre in injunction warning letters delivered under powers conferred by the Anti-Social Behaviour, Police and Crime Act, 2014 (read more here).

The Mayor emerged from last night’s fracas with great credit, showing very considerable patience and restraint, doing his best to maintain order in very difficult Miah-created circumstances. The Council Leader, Arooj Shah, also gave a very public showing of why she is so widely admired as a politician locally, regionally and nationally, brooking no nonsense from The Rabble.

The perennially weak and ineffective senior paid officers, led by Chief Executive, Harry Catherall, and Borough Solicitor, Paul Entwistle, much less so: It is their job to create a safe environment in which elected Members can conduct business on behalf of their ward constituents. A relatively simple task in which they failed abysmally, yet again. Dissidents who turn up at council meetings for the sole purpose of creating trouble, and instilling alarm and fear into others present, should be removed and prosecuted.

That includes the six councillors actually sitting in the chamber who are little more than Rabble proxies.

Their personal concerns about what might be said further about ‘Dirty Harry’ and ‘Paul Bentwistle’ on Miah’s Recusant Nine channels appearing to be the dominant factor all in their decision making.

Fortunately, for Oldham and the sake of democracy, Harry is leaving his job in December. Those who care about the Borough, and those whom tirelessly seek to make it a better place in which to live and work, wish he would, in all conscience, take his solicitor friend with him.

One leading political figure in the Region told Neil Wilby Media: “On the one hand that is, of course, an outrageous thing to say [to Cllr Ghafoor]. On the other hand, it is the Conservative Party who has been an active part of winding those people up to behave how they are. However, it does show that, in my opinion, they [The Rabble] are just a load of racists. I find it difficult to believe that she would’ve shouted that at a white councillor”.

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Page last updated: Thursday 13th July, 2023 at 07h55

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Picture credit: Oldham Council

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