LEAVE.EU IN COP PROBE OVER CASH
Watchdog’s £70k fine for Farage pals
THE Brexit campaign backed by Nigel Farage has been fined £70,000 and its chief executive referred to police over spending.
Leave.EU was slapped with the maximum penalty by the elections watchdog yesterday after a probe that lasted more than a year.
The Electoral Commission found the group unlawfully breached its £700,000 spending limit by at least £77,380 for the EU referendum.
The watchdog added “the actual figure was greater” because Leave.EU did not include services from US strategy firm Goddard Gunster.
There were “reasonable grounds to suspect” Liz Bilney, the group’s chief executive, had committed criminal offences, says the Commission.
She has been referred to the Met Police on suspicion that she “knowingly or recklessly signed a false declaration” alongside the spending files – allegations that she denies.
The £70,000 fine matches the sum the Tories had to pay last year for election spending offences in 2015.
Co-founded by insurance millionaire Arron Banks and endorsed by ex-UKIP leader Mr Farage, Leave.EU lost out as official Brexit party.
That meant its spending limit was £700,000 instead of £7million.
Investigators also found Leave.EU incorrectly reported three loans worth £6million from Mr Banks, even though they were “the only reported sources of funding” for its refer- endum campaign. And Leave.EU failed to provide the right paperwork for 97 smaller payments totalling £80,224, the watchdog said.
Mr Banks claims loans to Leave.EU came prior to the April 2016 spending cap period starting. Kyle Taylor, of the anti-Brexit Fair Vote Project, accused him of “cheating UK citizens out of a democratic vote”.
But Mr Banks blasted the watchdog’s decision as a “joke” and “politically motivated”.