Pro-Brexit group Leave.EU fined £70,000 for electoral law breaches
Pro-Brexit campaign group Leave.EU has been fined £70,000 by the Electoral Commission for breaching the law during the EU referendum campaign.
The group, which was backed by insurance millionaire Arron Banks and former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, was fined after an investigation into its funding and spending during the EU referendum.
The investigation concluded that Leave.EU exceeded its statutory spending limit and delivered incomplete and inaccurate spending and transaction returns.
Read more: Leave.EU "flabbergasted" over investigation into its EU referendum spending
The Commission said that Leave.EU failed to include at least £77,380 in its spending return, meaning it exceeded the spending limit for non-party registered campaigners by at least 10 per cent.
Bob Posner, Electoral Commission director of political finance and regulation & legal counsel, said it was “disappointing” that Leave.EU had breached the rules.
“The rules we enforce were put in place by parliament to ensure transparency and public confidence in our democratic processes. It is therefore disappointing that Leave.EU, a key player in the EU referendum, was unable to abide by these 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 Commissions fines,” he said.
Leave.EU hit back saying it would challenge the fine in court.
In a statement the group said: “Leave.EU have informed the EC we will be challenging their findings through the courts and look forward to robustly defending our position. Our QC and legal team is ready to go.”
Read more: Labour Lords shun whip to defeat government in Brexit bill amendment
Banks said: “We view the Electoral Commission announcement as a politically motivated attack on Brexit and the 17.4m people who defied the establishment to vote for an independent Britain.”
He also attacked the Electoral Commission calling it a “Blairite Swamp Creation packed full of establishment Remoaners”.
The Commission said Leave.EUs over-spend may have been considerably higher than 10 per cent as services the group received from US campaign strategy firm Goddard Gunster were not included in the spending return.
The Commission also said that Leave.EU had inaccurately reported three loans it had received.
It said that it had “reasonable grounds” to suspect that the responsible person for Leave.EU committed criminal offences and she has therefore been referred to the Metropolitan Police.
However, it said there was no evidence that Leave.EU received donations or paid-for services from controversial data company Cambridge Analytica for the referendum campaign and said the relationship did not develop beyond initial scoping work.
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