Leave.EU fined £70k for electoral law breaches
Campaign chief referred to Metropolitan Police
The pro-Brexit group Leave.EU has been fined £70,000 by the Electoral Commission and its chief officer referred to the Metropolitan police after breaching electoral law during the 2016 referendum to leave the European Union.
The commission said the group unlawfully exceeded its statutory spending limit by at least 10% and delivered incomplete and inaccurate spending and transaction returns. It also suggested the fine could have been higher but for a cap on how much it could impose.
Leave.EU campaign chief Liz Bilney now faces a police investigation. The commission said there were reasonable grounds to suspect that she “knowingly or recklessly signed a false declaration accompanying the Leave.EU referendum spending return”.
Leave.EU failed to include at least £77,380 in its spending return, the commission said, adding that the unlawful over-spend "may well have been considerably higher than that".
"Services the group received from the US campaign strategy firm Goddard Gunster were not included in the spending return, despite a proportion of them having been used during Leave.EU’s referendum campaign," it said in a statement.
The Commission found Leave.EU inaccurately reported three loans it had received from Banks, worth a total of £6m, including "a lack of transparency and incorrect reporting around who provided the loans, the dates the loans were entered into, the repayment date and the interest rate".
It also found that Leave.EU had not received services from the controversial political consultancy Cambridge Analytica that should have been declared on its spending return. The investigation found the relationship did not develop "beyond initial scoping work".
Instead it discovered that Cambridge had become concerned that Banks' group was using its reputation "to bolster its own credibility".
"The evidence seen by the Commission showed that Cambridge Analytica attempted several times to secure a contract with no apparent confirmation provided by Mr Banks or Leave.EU. Internal correspondence from Cambridge Analytica indicates that it was concerned that Leave.EU was ... was exaggerating its relationship with Cambridge Analytica," the commission said.
"It suggested to Leave.EU further public statements toning down the extent of the working relationship in light of the lack of any contract."
Bob Posner, Electoral Commission director of political finance and regulation & legal counsel, said it was disappointing that Leave.EU, a key player in the EU referendum, was unable to abide by the rules.
"Leave.EU exceeded its spending limit and failed to declare its funding and its spending correctly. These are serious offences. The level of fine we have imposed has been constrained by the cap on the Commission’s fines,” he said.
The group, co-founded by insurance businessman Arron Banks, bid to become the official campaign promoting Britain's departure from the EU. It lost out to the Vote Leave organisation, meaning it could only spend £70,000.
Banks has dismissed the matter as "politically motivated" and threatened legal action.