The Conservative candidate, Afzal Amin resigned on 23rd March as the parliamentary candidate for Dudley North after being accused of plotting a staged racial row with the English Defence League in order to garner votes. Afzal Amin denies any iniquity in this matter.
The Conservative party are now left in a lurch after his resignation and are swiftly trying to find an alternative candidate for one of the main target seats before 9th April, when the nominations closes.
The ex-army captain, Afzal Amin found himself embroiled in controversy when tapes surfaced of him supposedly plotting with EDL to aggravate and then soothe tensions with the local Muslim community in order to polish his dependability and trustworthiness with the voters.
There are further allegations that Amin had meetings with the former EDL leader, Tommy Robinson and its chairman, Steve Eddowes to persuade the group to plan but then cancel a demonstration against a new “megamosque”. Tommy Robinson went on to further claim that Amin had covertly offered to pay him and the EDL to campaign on his behalf in the election. This would have been illegal under the Representation of the People Act 1983. Amin denies all of thee allegations.
There were pressure on Afzal Amin to resign after the emergence of these allegations. Amin stresses that he was trying to amend the hostility between the two communities. “Using my experience as a strategist in Afghanistan, negotiating between pro-Taliban militias and the US military, I decided to use the same tactics to improve community relations here in my own country between the EDL and Muslim communities.”
