Respect councillors have been criticised for their “cut and paste” approach to politics, which has led to the party referring to Tower Hamlets rather than Bradford in one of their first motions to Bradford Council.

The Conservatives on the Council have highlighted the error which was made in a motion from Councillor Alyas Karmani, the Respect group leader, on the subject of defending the welfare state.

Councillor Glen Miller, leader of the Tories, said it was of concern when a party could not “muster the motivation to even cut and paste the motion to make reference to Bradford”.

He said: “Further to winning the Bradford West by-election in admittedly impressive fashion, the new Respect Party MP celebrated winning in “Blackburn”. Now we have a motion to Council which refers to ‘reducing child poverty in Tower Hamlets’, which makes it all too clear that the motion is likely to be a leftover from when the Respect Party still had influence and interest in their former stronghold of Tower Hamlets.”

He added: “It will be interesting to see how much of what has been promised by this new party is delivered.

“While we welcome anything and anyone that contributes to improving Bradford district, I would urge residents to view Respect’s promises with the scepticism which they are happy to apply to the promises made by the longer established political parties, in order to manage their expectations and avoid the bitter disappointment experienced by the residents of Tower Hamlets.”

Coun Karmani, the five-strong Respect group’s leader on the Council, told the Telegraph & Argus that the matter had simply been down to “clerical error”.

“The Tories should be focused on providing a robust opposition in Bradford and concentrating on the real issues rather than being preoccupied with something like this,” he said.

“We are not here to play politics, we are here to focus on the issues.

“Bradford is in absolute crisis so we need to be cohesive and work together to address the core issues, rather than this petty point scoring.”

Shortly after his shock by-election win in Bradford West, MP George Galloway blamed hoaxers for tweeting he had won a seat in Blackburn – not Bradford.

Reports suggested the new MP had tweeted: “I will try to live up to your expectations. Shattered but happy after the Blackburn triumph.”

But minutes later a message went up declaring: “Bradford is home to me now.”

Mr Galloway also appeared to blame hackers when he tweeted: “Nice try. Password now changed.”