The official designated campaign group that pushed for Britain's departure from the EU in the run-up to the 2016 referendum has been referred to the police and handed a £61,000 fine for breaking the spending limit.
Vote Leave exceeded the legal £7 million spending limit by almost £500,000, the Electoral Commission concluded today, following an investigation into the campaign's spending.
It found "significant evidence of joint working" with BeLeave, an unregistered campaign group, which spent £675,000 ahead of the Brexit vote. This spending was not included in Vote Leave's report.
In August 2016 BuzzFeed News revealed Vote Leave had donated £625,000 to the founder of BeLeave, Darren Grimes, then a 23-year-old fashion design student from Brighton, in the final days of the EU referendum campaign.
Grimes' project aimed to convince younger voters of the benefits of Brexit and was listed as an official Vote Leave outreach group, despite having just over 6,000 Facebook fans and fewer than 4,000 Twitter followers.
The last-minute timing of donations to BeLeave meant that they did not have to be declared until after the referendum result was known, and couldn't be scrutinised before the vote.
In 2016 the Electoral Commission said that while it was acceptable for one campaign to donate to another, "all expenditure they spend working together would be reported under expenditure of Vote Leave". But it told BuzzFeed News that it had found "no evidence that Darren Grimes and Vote Leave worked together in a way that broke the law".
However, in a statement in Tuesday it confirmed that the joint spending had not been declared.
"Vote Leave should have declared the amount of joint spending in its referendum spending return and therefore failed to deliver a complete campaign spending return," the commission said in a statement Tuesday morning.
It added that Vote Leave's spending report was "incomplete and inaccurate", with more than 40 items filed inaccurately, totalling nearly £236,502, and £12,850 in missing invoices.
In addition to the fine, the Electoral Commission has referred Grimes and Vote Leave official David Halsall to the police for false declarations.
Vote Leave derided the Electoral Commission's conclusions on Tuesday morning, claiming they contain "false accusations" and "inaccurate assertions".
It claimed that the commission based its findings on interviews with whistleblowers "who have no knowledge of how Vote Leave operated", without speaking to anybody at the campaign.
"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."
Grimes declined to comment, but said on Twitter that the commission's conclusions were "incredible" given that he had "apparently ticked the wrong box" when registering his campaign. Matthew Elliott, the former CEO of Vote Leave, also denounced the investigation's findings and said that staff had volunteered to be interviewed.
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?
Having skimmed the EC's report, they've ignored VL's detailed evidence, so it's riddled with errors & 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
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
buzzfeed.com