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Electoral Commission 'accuses Vote Leave of breaking law' Electoral Commission 'accuses Vote Leave of breaking law'
(about 7 hours later)
The elections watchdog has accused Vote Leave of illegal coordination with a student organisation, according to the campaign’s former chief executive, who took the extraordinary step of pre-empting the official investigation. The elections watchdog has accused Vote Leave of breaching the official spending limit of £7m during the run-up to the EU referendum, according to the campaign’s former chief executive.
A preliminary investigation by the Electoral Commission has concluded that Vote Leave made a donation it should not have made to a smalller pro-Brexit group, according to Matthew Elliott, who ran the official Brexit campaign. A preliminary investigation by the Electoral Commission concluded that Vote Leave, which was fronted by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, should not have donated £680,000 of surplus cash to a smaller pro-Brexit group because the two were acting in coordination.
Elliott said the watchdog had found four potential breaches of election law, including exceeding the £7m spending limit, making an inaccurate return of campaign expenditure, missing invoices and receipts, and failing to comply with a statutory notice. The admission was made by Matthew Elliott, who said he had been told that the commission had also found three other potential breaches of electoral law, prompting critics to say that the preliminary verdicts had “serious implications” for the referendum result.
Vote Leave said it was contesting the claims, and had gone public with its response to the commission, which is continuing to investigate. The elections watchdog is in the latter stages of its inquiry and has passed its preliminary conclusions to Vote Leave so the campaign can respond to the accusations.
The Electoral Commission said it was “unusual” for the subject of an investigation to try to pre-empt its findings. Elliott said Vote Leave was contesting the claims and had decided to go public, as it sent in its formal response to the commission investigation. In an interview with the BBC, he said he thought Vote Leave had “acted both within the letter of the law and also the spirit of the law”.
The allegations centre on a £680,000 donation passed on by the campaign to a separate youth Brexit group called BeLeave, led by the student Darren Grimes. But Chuka Umunna, a backbench Labour MP who supports staying in the European Union, said: “So in an EU referendum where there was a 4% victory for Vote Leave, they overspent by 10%. Very serious implications.”
Whistleblowers alleged that there was co-ordination between the two groups – which is not permitted by electoral law – and that the the money was used for the benefit of Vote Leave to pay data firm Aggregate IQ for targeted social media messaging. Whistleblowers had alleged that there was close coordination between Vote Leave and the student group BeLeave, which received the money. Both groups spent significant sums buying advertising on Facebook with the help of Canadian political consultancy and tech firm Aggregate IQ.
Had this cash been recorded as part of Vote Leave’s referendum expenditure, it would take the campaign’s spending over the £7m limit. Shahmir Sanni, a former Vote Leave volunteer, told the Observer in March that official Brexit campaign had offered advice and assistance to BeLeave and helped it to decide where its cash would be spent, allegations he reported to the Electoral Commission. On Wednesday, Sanni said the preliminary conclusion vindicated his complaint: “If this is true, the evidence that I brought forward in March has been confirmed. Vote Leave used BeLeave to break electoral law.”
Former Vote Leave volunteer Shahmir Sanni told the Observer earlier this year that Vote Leave had offered advice and assistance to BeLeave and helped it to decide where its cash would be spent, allegations he reported to the Electoral Commission and the police. According to Elliott, Vote Leave is also accused of making an inaccurate return of campaign expenditure, missing invoices and receipts, and failing to comply with a statutory notice. He added that it had sent a 500 page response defending to the Commission defending itself against the claims. Elliott told the BBC he had submitted a 500-page dossier to the Electoral Commission rebutting the claims.
Vote Leave now admits there was email correspondence between Anthony Clake, who donated the cash, and Vote Leave’s campaign director, Dominic Cummings, about passing the donation on to BeLeave. The commission has the power of fining Vote Leave £20,000 for each breach of election law. It can refer to police the person responsible for drawing up the spending return if there is evidence to suggest they knowingly or recklessly submitted a return they knew to be false.
In broadcast interviews on Wednesday, Elliott accused the watchdog of not taking Vote Leave’s version of events into account. Vote Leave also attempted to accuse the election watchdog of following “a highly political agenda” when it briefed rightwing media overnight about its complaints, repeating the argument in appearances with the BBC and Sky News on Wednesday. Elliott said the commission had so far declined to interview senior Vote Leave figures.
“Their initial conclusion is that we have overspent, that a donation we made to another group during the course of the campaign was incorrect. We shouldn’t have made that donation,” he told Sky News. The watchdog said it was surprised that Vote Leave had chosen to go public before its investigation had concluded. A spokesman said its normal process was to produce preliminary conclusions and invite responses.
Elliott said whistleblowers from the leave campaign, including Sanni, were “quite frankly marginal characters”. “The commission has concluded its investigation and, having reached initial findings, provided Vote Leave with a 28-day period to make any further or new representations. That period ended on Tuesday 3 July.
“I think it is a huge breach of natural justice that they haven’t wanted to listen to our opinions and our story and we were the people running the campaign,” he told Sky News.
Elliott told the BBC he had submitted a 500-page dossier to the Electoral Commission rebutting the claims.
He said he thought Vote Leave had “acted both within the letter of the law and also the spirit of the law”.
A commission spokesman said: “The commission has concluded its investigation and, having reached initial findings, provided Vote Leave with a 28-day period to make any further or new representations. That period ended on Tuesday 3 July.
“The unusual step taken by Vote Leave in sharing its views on the Electoral Commission’s initial findings does not affect the process set out in law.”“The unusual step taken by Vote Leave in sharing its views on the Electoral Commission’s initial findings does not affect the process set out in law.”
The environment secretary, Michael Gove, one of the key figures in the Brexit campaign along with the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson, said he would not be drawn on the unpublished report because he believed it would be subject to a legal challenge. Gove defended Elliott’s actions, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I understand from the interviews Matthew Elliott has given that he vigorously contests some of what has been alleged in that report.” He said he expected a legal challenge if the commission’s final conclusion was that Vote Leave broke spending rules.
“I understand from the interviews Matthew Elliott has given that he vigorously contests some of what has been alleged in that report,” Gove told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “The report itself is going to be challenged legally, and if it is, then if these matters are going through the courts, it would be inappropriate for me, not having read the report, to offer commentary.”
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