Police 'aware' of fake election posters spreading misinformation in Solihull

Police said they 'are aware' of fake election posters spreading misinformation. The Green Party and Liberal Democrats have been targeted in the posters which have been ripped down by campaigners.

One of the candidates in the election, Max McLoughlin, has said it has been an odd and sad week before polling day due to the posters he has called out as Islamophobia. And Mr McLoughlin, the Green Party’s candidate in Solihull West and Shirley, has said the posters have been put up from people who are “not representative of the area”.

The posters, written in green ink and pretending to be from Green Party, went up in Monkspath and Shirley and read: “Vote Green, Sharia law. Our new mantra “Allahu Akbar”.” Mr McLoughlin said he handed them to police.

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All the fake posters claim they are “courtesy of the Red Rose Information Project”. Little is known about this group with no apparent online presence. They have no association with the Labour Party which has a red rose as its logo.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Mr McLoughlin thanked the Labour candidate Deidre Fox who he said had called to check on him. He also thanked the Liberal Democrat candidate, Ade Adeyemo, for taking posters down when he had seen them.

“There have been messages of support and sympathy - it is not representative of the people of the area,” the candidate said.

“What has come out strongly is people are tired of that divisive politics, alienating people. “Between the candidates there has been nothing of that nature, no personal attacks.

“It (the posters) have been out of character of the campaigns run by the political parties”.

The Liberal Democrats has been targeted with posters with the ‘Winning Here’ diamond - known as the party’s campaign symbol - changed to ‘Losing Here’.

Laura McCarthy, former leader of the Liberal Democrats group on Solihull Council, said it had been concerning as the posters were put up a number of times outside the home of one of their female activists.

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“This appears to have been done on a number of occasions,” Cllr McCarthy said. “These actions have left her and her family very distressed due to the deliberate and specific nature, which appears to be directly targeted.

"Attempts to bully or intimidate will not be tolerated.” A spokesperson for West Midlands Police said: “We are aware of these posters.

“We'd ask anyone with information about them to get in touch with us via Live Chat (on westmidlands.police.uk) or call 101."