The mayor of a London borough has told a judge that the Labour Party bears "hallmarks of institutional racism".

Lutfur Rahman, independent mayor of Tower Hamlets, east London - and a former Labour leader on Tower Hamlets Council - has told a special High Court hearing that he had been part of a "new generation of ethnic minority candidates" in the Labour Party.

And he said he had "always felt a degree of ambivalence" from colleagues in the Labour Party hierarchy.

Mr Rahman, who now leads a party called Tower Hamlets First (THF), was today giving evidence at an Election Court trial in London where he has been accused of "electoral fraud".

Four voters have taken legal action against Mr Rahman. They want Election Commissioner Richard Mawrey - who is sitting as a judge at the trial - to declare the result of the May 2014 mayoral election, which saw Mr Rahman elected for a second term, void and order a re-run.

Mr Rahman denies wrongdoing.

The trial started earlier this month and is expected to end in March.

Mr Rahman outlined his thoughts about the Labour Party in a written witness statement given to the judge.

He said he was born in Bangladesh, had come to the UK at an early age and his family had settled in Tower Hamlets.

Mr Rahman said he had been educated at state schools and had studied law before becoming a solicitor and specialising in child cases.

He said he had "left of centre and social democratic values" and had joined Labour in the 1980s.

Mr Rahman said he became a Labour councillor in Tower Hamlets in 2002 and leader of the Labour group on the council in 2008.

He said from 2008 a campaign had been conducted against him by Labour members - claiming "primarily" that he was part of the Islamic Forum of Europe, which was "alleged to be an extremist grouping".

Mr Rahman said he had "never been a member" of the forum.

"I believe I ruffled feathers in the party hierarchy," he said.

"The Labour Party is not racist in the overt sense but I believe it, like many other organisations, still bears some of the hallmarks of institutional racism.

"In my experience this often meant identifying ethnic Bengali activists or councillors as 'Bangladeshi activists' or 'Bangladeshi councillors' and seeing them as responsible for delivering the Bangladeshi vote.

"My colleagues would talk casually of the 'Bangladeshi vote' as if it was a homogeneous bloc that would be delivered en masse."

He added: "I was from a new generation of ethnic minority candidates in the Labour Party and I was not interested in the ceremonial role. My areas of interest were policy-making, scrutiny and challenge. Accordingly, I always felt a degree of ambivalence from some colleagues in the party hierarchy."