A KANGAROO COURT

Fury of Vote Leave as they are fined for overspending by £600k (although Remain got £9m for pro-EU leaflets)

THE Electoral Commission was accused of running a politically-motivated ‘kangaroo court’ yesterday after it found the official Brexit campaign had broken electoral law during the referendum.

Vote Leave was fined tens of thousands and senior figures reported to the police over allegations it breached strict spending limits.

But the campaign reacted with fury, claiming the commission had based its findings on ‘unfounded claims and conspiracy theories’. There were also claims of bias. Brexiteers have repeatedly accused the commission of focusing on allegations of wrongdoing by the Leave side, while finding that David Cameron’s decision to spend £9.3million of taxpayers’ money on a leaflet sent to all households setting out the case for Remain was within the referendum rules.

The allegations centre on how Vote Leave gave £675,000 to BeLeave, founded by 22-year-old fashion student Darren Grimes, to spend on Facebook adverts in the final days of the referendum campaign. It handed over the cash as it came within £200,000 of the £7million spending limit.

Campaigns were allowed to donate excess funds to other groups, but only if there was no instructions on how the cash should be spent.

The commission yesterday said there was ‘substantial evidence’ that Vote Leave – which has been fined £61,000 – and BeLeave had been working to a ‘common plan’. Mr Grimes was fined £20,000 and referred to the Metropolitan Police along with Vote Leave official David Halsall.

Vote Leave said the commission’s report contained ‘a number of false accusations and incorrect assertions that are wholly inaccurate and do not stand up to scrutiny’.

A spokesman said: ‘It is astonishing that nobody from Vote Leave has been interviewed by the commission in the production of this report, nor indeed at any point in the past two years, despite Vote Leave repeatedly making it clear they are willing to do so.

‘Yet the commission has interover viewed the so-called “whistleblowers”, who have no knowledge of how Vote Leave operated and whose credibility has been seriously called into question.

‘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.’

The spokesman added that Vote Leave was confident that the findings would be overturned. Dominic Cummings, who was campaign director, said he was ‘looking forward to this idiocy being properly dealt with finally in open court, where the Electoral Commission’s kangaroo court antics will be exposed’.

The commission cleared Vote Leave of breaking spending limits in March last year but re-opened its investigation after ‘new evidence’ came to light. It said it made five attempts to interview Vote Leave the course of three months and accused it of ‘resisting our investigation from the start’.

In a statement posted on Twitter, Mr Grimes said he had been fined £20,000 for ‘ticking the wrong box’ on an application form.

He said: ‘Politicians say they want young people to engage with politics. I was 22 when I got involved in a referendum I felt passionately about. I did nothing wrong.

‘I have been persecuted by powerful people for nothing more than engaging in the democratic process and having the temerity to be on the winning side.’

‘Motivated by a political agenda’