Vote Leave ‘broke electoral law’ during Brexit campaign say elections watchdog and refer case to the police
But the group deny wrongdoing and blast the Electoral Commission ‘false accusations’ after it fined them and man behind another group over their referendum spending – saying investigation was ‘motivated by a political agenda’
THE OFFICIAL Brexit campaign group was found to have “broke electoral law” during the Brexit campaign say the elections watchdog as they refer the case to the police.
But Vote Leave has denied any wrongdoing and has blasted the Electoral Commission for making “false accusations”.
It has fined them and Darren Grimes, the man behind another group BeLeave, over their referendum spending – saying the investigation was “motivated by a political agenda”.
The commission found Vote Leave "did not adhere to the legal spending limits" during the run-up to the 2016 poll.
They said they found "substantial evidence" the two groups worked together, which contravened their regulations.
The conclusions of its investigation found BeLeave spent more than £675,000 with a digital advertising firm Aggregate IQ under “a common plan with Vote Leave”.
It said this spending should have been declared by Vote Leave, but that would mean the officially designated campaign would have exceeded its legal spending limit of £7million by almost £500,000.
But the officially designated pro-Brexit campaign group said there was no evidence of any wrongdoing.
A spokesman said: “The Electoral Commission’s report contains a number of false accusations and incorrect assertions that are wholly inaccurate and do not stand up to scrutiny.
“It is astonishing that nobody from Vote Leave has been interviewed by the Commission in the production of this report, nor indeed at any point in the past two years, despite Vote Leave repeatedly making it clear they are willing to do so.”
Blasting the watchdog, they added: “Vote Leave has provided evidence to the Electoral Commission proving there was no wrongdoing.
“And yet despite clear evidence of wrongdoing by the Remain campaign, the Commission has chosen to ignore this and refused to launch an investigation.
“All this suggests that the supposedly impartial Commission is motivated by a political agenda rather than uncovering the facts.
“The Commission has failed to follow due process, and in doing so has based its conclusions on unfounded claims and conspiracy theories. We will consider the options available to us, but are confident that these findings will be overturned.”
And Mr Grimes tweeted: "I’m shocked and disappointed by the Electoral Commission and their behaviour.
"They have put me and my family of very ordinary means through hell for two years and seek to justify this by saying that I failed a box ticking exercise — why has this taken them three investigations?"
And Matthew Elliott, Vote Leave's chief exec, added: "Having skimmed the Electoral Commission's report, they've ignored Vote Leave's detailed evidence, so it's riddled with errors and conclusions completely wrong.
"We accepted their invitation for an interview in early March. Senior staff also volunteered to be interviewed. They haven't followed due process
The investigation also concluded Vote Leave returned an “incomplete and inaccurate spending report” of the money the used in the run-up to the EU vote.
The commission said there was almost £234,501 reported incorrectly, with invoices missing for £12,849.99 of spending, and have been fined £61,000.
Meanwhile Mr Grimes has been fined £20,000 for two offences, and he and David Halsall, the responsible person for Vote Leave, have had their cases referred to the Metropolitan Police.
The watchdog has also shared its files with officers to see if anyone else outside their regulatory remit may have committed related offences.
Bob Posner, a director at the Electoral Commission, said: “We found substantial evidence that the two groups worked to a common plan, did not declare their joint working and did not adhere to the legal spending limits.
“These are serious breaches of the laws put in place by Parliament to ensure fairness and transparency at elections and referendums.”
Blasting Vote Leave's their behaviour during the investigation, Mr Posner continued: “It has refused to cooperate, refused our requests to put forward a representative for interview, and forced us to use our legal powers to compel it to provide evidence.
“Nevertheless, the evidence we have found is clear and substantial, and can now be seen in our report.”
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The Electoral Commission’s chief exec Claire Bassett also told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Over a three-month period we actually made five attempts to interview Vote Leave and we were unable to.
"We have in fact issued a record fine for failure to cooperate with a statutory notice because we found it so difficult to get Vote Leave to work with us in this investigation.”
They also found that another campaign group - Veterans for Britain - inaccurately reported a donation from Vote Leave and fined them £250.
But it said there was no evidence of any campaigning under a common plan.
The Sun Says
OF all the attempts to thwart Brexit, the campaign to pretend the referendum wasn’t fair is the most pathetic and dishonest.
The Electoral Commission’s probe into Vote Leave’s alleged overspending is fatally flawed if it failed even to interview those who ran it.
Worse, it has not applied the same scrutiny to the Remain camp, which clearly co-ordinated smaller groups just as Vote Leave is said to have done.
As for Remainers claiming this alleged overspend skewed a tight referendum, what cobblers. The Commission’s own figures show Remain vastly outspent Leave — on top of the £9million David Cameron wasted leafleting every home begging us to vote to stay in.
The odds were massively stacked against Leave and they still won.
This Remain rearguard action has nothing to do with the vote’s legitimacy.
It is just a continuing tantrum, aimed at the 17.4million who disagreed with them.