The tide goes out on Miah's disinformation

Our exclusive this week on The Network Map is, we hope, the beginning of the end for Raja Miah. For too long, Miah has had a free hand to spread lies about Oldham and Oldham people, with the sole aim of harvesting the outrage he creates for money.

This has given him not only a very tidy living in leafy Mossley, but actual political power in Oldham. Not that I'm particularly interested, but sources I trust have told me that Miah held consultations with several Reform councillors in Rhode Island, the council coffee shop of choice, during the afternoon of Wednesday 16 September, ahead of the vote on the interim governance arrangements that Labour, Reform, the Oldham Group and the Lib Dems had agreed to back.

The negotiations ahead of that vote took place over a number of weeks, led by Shelley Kipling, the council chief executive, and her staff. The upshot was not a functioning council leader and cabinet, but the plugging of gaps in accountability arising from the absence of a leader and cabinet. This was too much for Miah, who demanded to know why Reform councillors were part of a "backroom deal" that he had not personally sanctioned. Just to reiterate: a man who doesn't live in Oldham thought it was okay for him to tell people elected by Oldhamers what to do. Miah reckons it's absolutely fine for him to set himself above both Oldham voters and actual elected Oldham councillors.

Earlier that week, Miah's rage was stoked when Councillor Lewis Quigg, his friend, resigned as leader of the Reform councillors. When he realised that Reform councillors had signed up to the interim governance arrangements, he went fully berserk. But Miah's power was ebbing away and, by the time the council reconvened after an adjournment, Reform voted for the agreement, against his express wishes.

Miah's power derives from his online following, which is massive. Far bigger, in fact, than the population of Oldham. (He's not from Oldham and neither are his followers). After the vote, he attacked Councillor Andy Brooks, Reform representative for Failsworth East, the entire Reform group of councillors, and every single Reform voter in Oldham. He really lost it.

Miah ranted on Twitter: "Kipling has made claims about the commissioners she has never backed up with evidence. Reform hasn't challenged her on any of it. Why? Are they scared to take on the Labour Party appointed chief executive? Or do they want to share a bed with her?"

Miah's followers and Miah himself do not believe in representative democracy, but I do, as do the vast majority of Oldhamers. I wouldn't vote for Reform, but I respect people who do, and I respect the people they elect and those who put their names forward for election. It's a tough gig, especially when you've got the likes of Miah on your case, because he's not shy of using the threat of his maniac followers to intimidate people.

I also respect working people, of whom Ms Kipling is one. In one fell swoop, Miah insults not only Reform councillors and Reform voters (40% of people who voted in May voted Reform), but accuses Ms Kipling, whose impartiality is a major part of her professional vocation, of being a Labour stooge. He also reckons that they are all motivated by the...

There's no point going on is there? Miah is a stain on his home town of Mossley and, if his followers think like he does, if they are as prurient and disgusting as he is, they all deserve each other.

My point was that Miah thought he had real power over Reform councillors because he thought they were on the same page with his misogynistic hatred of Shelley Kipling, and his racist and misogynistic hatred of Arooj Shah, and his vengeance-fuelled pursuit of Jim McMahon and so on. Over the weeks and months since the May elections, Reform councillors have come to recognise and appreciate their status as elected Oldham councillors and the obligations that come with civic office. At that vote, they chose to put their civic duty above what Miah perceives as their duty to him and his followers.

And Miah's power just vanished. Poof! The Reform councillors - those who saw him in Rhode Island on Wednesday afternoon and those who didn't - did not do what he wanted. Miah's influence undoubtedly informed the drama at the meeting, when Mark Wilkinson told the assembled councillors that Reform would abstain. But his influence did not obtain beyond that.

Miah is as free as the next person to spread lies on the internet for money. Good luck to him. But Oldham politics and politicians are better off without him. Oldham is better off without him.

The enlightenment is back

The worse news for Miah and many other conspiracy salespersons is that there is a real and promising moral fightback against nonsense. People are once again basing their ideas on evidence.

If you want to know the truth about grooming gangs in the UK, for example, a group of people have compiled a map of it. The findings are stark: the problem is more widespread than our nation's political and law and order institutions understand. None the less, the map compilers have not named people who have not been found guilty of crimes. They have not mapped incidents based on rumour or suspicion, even though they are quite a suspicious bunch.

Miah has accused tens of thousands of people of child sexual exploitation offences who have never been arrested, let alone charged, let alone convicted. Miah makes up both the crimes and the perpetrators. He never provides evidence to support his allegations. He does not know or care what evidence is and how it counts. His metric of truth is to do with clicks and eyeballs, not evidence. An unscientific canvass of online marketing people put his income at anything between £30,000 and £80,000. Maybe I should start telling lies on the internet, because the truth doesn't pay anything like that.

Sources close to some Rochdale survivors tell me that they no longer want to associate with Miah. They say, as I say, that his only motivation is money, which it is. Everyone loves having money, but most people make it honestly, without exploiting other people's unimaginable pain, and without casting aspersions on entire ethnic and national communities because of the crimes committed by some of their number, and without making utterly horrible unsubstantiated allegations against public servants, family men and women, and on and on and on.

The creators of The Network Map have given The Oldham Owl an exclusive interview which, among other things, gives the lie both to Miah's conspiracy theories and to the institutional denial of the geographical extent and prevalence of child sexual exploitation gangs in this country. It's a work of the enlightenment: a work based on evidence, verification, exhaustive self-interrogation.

It's a terrible and terrifying subject. The Oldham Owl will be covering the public inquiry when it comes to Oldham later in the year.

This shouldn't be news but it is. The truth and evidence are back in vogue.