Patel calls for investigation into spending by Remainers

THE campaign to keep Britain in the EU has been referred to the electoral watchdog amid claims it may have breached spending rules.

Priti Patel, the former international development secretary and prominent Brexiteer, has written to the Electoral Commission to ask it to launch an investigation into Remain campaign spending. The Tory suggests in her letter that Remain-backing donors may have funnelled money into new campaign groups set up just weeks before the referendum in order to avoid breaching spending limits.

Meanwhile, she claims there is evidence Remain campaign groups may have coordinated their activity but failed to accurately reflect that in their spending returns.

Commenting on the letter, she said: “It cannot be right that Remain campaigners can so blatantly flout the rules to feed the British people their propaganda.” A Remain campaign source dismissed the claims and said: “This looks like a mischievous attempt by Leave campaigners to muddy the waters.

“Leave campaigners are desperately trying to make it seem like both sides were at it when that was clearly not the case. We played by the rules. We’ll see if the Electoral Commission think Vote Leave did.” The Electoral Commission announced in November that it had opened an investigation to establish whether Vote Leave breached campaign finance rules.

In her letter, Ms Patel sets out that rules were put in place to ensure that groups could not work in connection with each other and keep their expenditure separate. She says “significant evidence of co-ordination of campaign expenditure by those campaigning for ‘remain’ has recently come to my attention”, citing reports of regular phone calls between the leading Remain campaigns “to coordinate their activity”.