LIARS AND CHEATS
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PRESSURE was building last night for a Brexit referendum rerun after it was confirmed Leave campaigners cheated.
The UK’s election watchdog fined Vote Leave and called in police after it emerged they broke strict spending rules in the run-up to the 2016 vote.
Prominent Brexiteers including Boris Johnson and Michael Gove have already been criticised for campaign lies. And with the UK Government in chaos over Brexit, there were widespread calls for a second referendum.
THE EU referendum result was being called into question last night after it emerged Vote Leave broke the law and failed to declare spending of £500,000 over the legal limit during the campaign.
Scotland Yard were called in yesterday and there were calls for the outcome to be annulled after the Electoral Commission fined the official Leave campaign, which was fronted by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove.
Vote Leave failed to declare money they spent with controversial data firm Aggregate IQ, the Electoral Commission said.
The investigation centred on a donation of almost £680,000 made by Vote Leave to BeLeave, a youth Brexit group.
The commission said their investigation found “significant evidence” of joint working between Vote Leave – who have has been fined £61,000 – and BeLeave, who were founded by student Darren Grimes.
Grimes was fined £20,000 and referred to the Metropolitan Police with David Halsall, the responsible person for Vote Leave, “in relation to false declarations of campaign spending”, the commission added.
BeLeave “spent more than £675,000 with Aggregate IQ under a common plan with Vote Leave”, which should have been declared but was not. Vote Leave accused the commission of being “motivated by a political agenda rather than uncovering the facts”. But Remain supporters said the overspend of almost 10 per cent on £7million campaign limits was an affront to democracy. Remain supporting Labour MP Chuka Umunna MP said: “Who do these people think they are? They think they are above the law. We know their claims were a fantasy and we now know that they cheated too”. He said the Government can’t say for sure the overspending did not affect the result. He called for a public inquiry into Vote Leave and demanded to hear from senior Tories who sat on the body. Among the senior Tories on the Love Leave campaign committee were Trade Secretary Liam Fox, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, Gove and Johnson. Umunna asked: “What did they know about what was going on? Members of the Cabinet were found to be sitting on an organisation who have been found to have flouted our democracy.”
The SNP’s Tommy Shepherd said the Vote Leave campaign had been “morally and politically questionable and now we know a campaign that was organised illegally”.
He demanded “the Government draw a line between themselves and the people implicated.
“We need an assurance that anyone involved in working on Vote Leave or
on their board will cease to hold office in government.”
Scottish Brexit Secretary Mike Russell said the conclusions were “damning”.
He renewed his call for a second referendum, linking Scotland’s Remain vote with one for independence.
Russell tweeted: “The result in favour of Brexit was obtained, at least in part, by breaching electoral law. It cannot be allowed to stand.
“Another vote is now essential providing there are safeguards for Scotland in terms of outcomes.”
Senior Tory MP Sarah Wollaston called for a “re-run” of the EU referendum. The Health and Social Care Select Committee chairwoman told the Commons: “We cannot have confidence that this referendum was secure and it should be re-run.”
Labour’s Julie Elliott said the Government should declare the referendum “null and void”. Best for Britain, who are campaigning against Brexit, say the findings make the EU referendum result “dodgier than ever”.
Labour MP David Lammy said: “Its validity is now in question. Politicians from all parties have a duty to ask, ‘Do we want to continue with a policy that will wreck our economy and consume government for the next decade, based on this flimsy result?’”
Kyle Taylor, director of fair Vote UK said the referendum result was now illegitimate. She said: “We need to wake up and start fighting for our democracy.
“Until there are adequate deterrents against cheating, bad actors will continue to take advantage of our democracy and break the law. This is unacceptable.
“Elections and referenda have serious consequences and cheating in these campaigns must be punished.”
The result of the referendum was 51.9 per cent for Leave and 48.1 per cent for Remain.
But with the UK due to officially leave the European Union at 11pm on March 29, 2019, there is little to no time to run a fresh referendum.
Any decision would have to be made by the Government – who are set against a re-run – and Parliament would have to pass a fresh Referendum Act.