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Vote Leave members 'may have committed criminal offences' Vote Leave members 'may have committed criminal offences'
(about 3 hours later)
A number of possible criminal offences may have been committed by members of the official Brexit campaign during the EU referendum, according to the expert view of some of Britain’s leading barristers. Members of the official Brexit campaign during the EU referendum may have committed criminal offences relating to overspending and collusion, according to lawyers advising whistleblowers who worked inside the organisation.
Intensifying the pressure on senior figures within Theresa May’s cabinet and No 10 Downing Street, Helen Mountfield QC and Clare Montgomery QC of Matrix Chambers, concluded there is a “prima facie case” that a number of electoral offences were committed by the Vote Leave campaign. Clare Montgomery and Helen Mountfield, barristers from Matrix chambers, concluded in a formal opinion that there was a “prima facie case” that Vote Leave submitted an inaccurate spending return and colluded with BeLeave, which was aimed at students.
An urgent investigation is required, they say, to determine whether the case should be referred to the Crown Prosecution Service. They were reviewing a dossier of evidence supplied by solicitors Bindmans, which contained examples of alleged collusion showing that Vote Leave and BeLeave were not separate and therefore that the leave campaign spent over the £7m legal limit set by the Electoral Commission.
Having examined a “significant body of new whistleblower evidence” which includes the testimony of three individuals with close knowledge of the Vote Leave campaign, the QCs’ legal opinion is that “there would be realistic prospects of conviction” in relation to claims revealed in the Observer that Vote Leave may have flouted referendum spending rules during the EU referendum campaign. MPs will debate the allegations in the Commons on Tuesday, after the Lib Dems secured an emergency debate. The dossier has also been passed to the Electoral Commission, which is responsible for election law.
The QCs said that, from the documents and files they had seen and which have now been sent to the Electoral Commission, there were “strong grounds” that Vote Leave overspent, as it channelled money through another campaign, which it may have been co-ordinating with. This, if proved true, amounts to a breach of electoral law. Tamsin Allen, from Bindmans, told a press conference “that there is a strong suspicion that the campaigns were very closely linked and co-ordinated, in which case it may be that Vote Leave spent huge sums unlawfully and its declaration of expenses is incorrect”.
Vote Leave, whose leading members include Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, strongly denies any co-ordination with another campaign group during the referendum. Vote Leave formally declared it had spent £6.77m during the campaign in the summer of 2016, well below the £7m limit. That figure, however, excluded £625,000 donated by Vote Leave to BeLeave which was spent on the same digital marketing company, Aggregate IQ, that Vote Leave used.
The new evidence, according to the 50-page document examining payments made by Vote Leave during the EU referendum, is “highly significant because it substantially changes the evidential picture” compared with the material previously examined by the Electoral Commission. Vote Leave, whose leading members include Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, strongly denies any coordination with another campaign group during the referendum.
The document says that the Electoral Commission must use its powers to investigate members of the campaign and that “in our opinion, the extensive grounds for suspicion of the commission of offences under PPERA [Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000] are sufficiently strong, and the potential offences sufficiently serious, that there is a good case for the exercise by the commission of its investigative powers”. But Allen said there were grounds to suspect Dominic Cummings, Vote Leave’s campaign director, “of having conspired to break the law” because he was among those engaged in discussions with BeLeave about their organisation, activity and funding.
Mountfield, Montgomery and a third barrister from Matrix, Ben Silverstone, also examined evidence in relation to the possible deletion of key Vote Leave names from a shared drive with a referendum campaign organisation called BeLeave. The QCs concluded that the material “justifies further investigation with a view to establish whether there is reasonable suspicion that the offence of perverting the course of justice has been committed”. Emails compiled by Bindmans appear to show that Vote Leave assisted in the creation of BeLeave’s branding and that there was constant communication between to the two groups, who were based in the same office. They suggest that they used a single shared drive where campaign materials were shared.
The Electoral Commission has already “assessed” the issue twice and found in favour of Vote Leave on both occasions. However a judicial review launched by the Good Law Project in November led to the commission re-opening an investigation into the donation and is yet to report its findings. Bindmans’ dossier was largely based on evidence supplied by Shahmir Sanni, a volunteer who worked at both Vote Leave and BeLeave, with supporting evidence from Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee who worked on the Trump election campaign and who had worked for Aggregate IQ.
A Facebook chat records Sanni discussing with the BeLeave founder, Darren Grimes, how they might set up independently in May 2016. “We could just say that you and I will be handling the money and using our social media data (alongside VL data) to decide where best to spend our money,” Sanni wrote.
Wylie said that an employee of Aggregate IQ had told him the relationship between Vote Leave and BeLeave was “totally illegal” because “you are not allowed to coordinate between different campaigns and not declare it”. He said “I don’t feel confident in the result [of the referendum]” as a result.
The lawyers said there were also “grounds to investigate” Stephen Parkinson, Vote Leave’s national organiser, who now works as Theresa May’s special adviser and Cleo Watson, who was Vote Leave’s head of outreach and also now works at No 10. Parkinson and Watson have denied any wrongdoing.
Montgomery and Mountfield added that there were “significant questions” about the role of a senior Vote Leave official, who – according to evidence from the whistleblowers – “appeared to change permissions on a BeLeave shared drive in March 2017 while an [Electoral Commission] investigation was under way”.
Cummings wrote in a blogpost before the press conference that “a team will also be putting in formal complaints to the EC and ICO [Information Commissioner’s Office] about the illegal conduct of the remain campaign”. He has previously argued that Stronger In also took advantage of loopholes to reduce the expenditure against its £7m limit.
Vote Leave has repeatedly denied it coordinated its activities with BeLeave. Venner Shipley, Vote Leave’s lawyers, said: “We have never been instructed by, nor have we ever provided advice to BeLeave.”
The allegations have all been denied by Vote Leave and its former officials, who reject all accusations of wrongdoing.
The Electoral Commission has already assessed the issue twice and found in favour of Vote Leave on both occasions. But a judicial review launched by the Good Law Project in November led to the commission re-opening an investigation into the donation which is yet to report its findings.
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Article 50
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