The High Court has dismissed the argument of a failed election candidate who argued that Royal Mail’s failure to deliver his leaflets was a breach of electoral law.

Graham Moore, who stood for the English Constitutional Party, (ECP) received just 50 votes at the Runcorn and Helsby by-election in May, which saw Sarah Pochin voted in for Reform UK.

Moore challenged the result of the election in the Election Court, alleging a fraudulent and/or erroneous vote count.

A separate ground of his challenge was that Royal Mail interfered in the by-election by its alleged failure to deliver election communication leaflets of the ECP. He served witness statements from four people who said they had not received an ECP election leaflet through their letterbox from Royal Mail.

Moore originally sought to make the Royal Mail Group a respondent to his petition but the Divisional Court declared it was not a proper respondent and struck the petition out against it. But the issue was addressed by the Election Court in a ruling last week, in which the judges dismissed the petition and awarded costs against Moore, who appeared in person.

In a joint judgment, Mr Justice Bryan and Mr Justice Martin Spencer called the Royal Mail claim ‘misconceived’ and said it was not supported by the wording of Section 91(1) of the Representation of the People Act 1983.

The act provides that a candidate at a parliamentary election is entitled to send, free of postage, one postal communication addressed to each elector.

‘As is clear from the language of the statute, the entitlement is only an entitlement to send (free of postage), it is not an entitlement to delivery’, the judges said.  ‘The statute does not give, nor could it sensibly give, an entitlement to delivery whether at each property, to each elector or at all. Furthermore, the Act provides no electoral remedy in the event of non-delivery. It is not difficult to see why this is so given the myriad of reasons why a leaflet or leaflets might not be delivered, ranging from logistical difficulties to leaflets being lost in the post to events preventing delivery including at, but not limited to, the delivery address.’