Will Remain receive equal scrutiny?

The decision of the Electoral Commission (EC) to fine Vote Leave for alleged financial irregularities during the 2016 referendum campaign will delight those who continue to protest that the electorate was somehow duped. The organisation’s offence was not to have included the spending of another group called Beleave, aimed at younger voters, in its overall figures. This has been adjudged a breach of electoral law and the police may be asked to investigate with a view to prosecution.

There are many aspects of this exercise that are unsatisfactory, to say the least. The commission at no stage interviewed senior Vote Leave staff to hear their side of the story and nor did it examine evidence that the group produced in its defence. This is an affront to natural justice. How can the commission have reached the conclusions that it has without adopting a fair and just procedure?

Vote Leave says it adduced information to disprove the claims made against it, but this was ignored. If that is true, it raises serious questions about the commission’s impartiality – a statutory requirement. Vote Leave is planning a legal challenge but this could have been obviated had the EC carried out its functions properly.

What is most bizarre about this long-running attempt to besmirch the Leave campaign groups that won the referendum is that equal scrutiny is not applied to the Remain side. The notion that Leave financially outgunned Remain is for the birds. Remain not only called on the entire machinery of government to bolster its case, along with big business, the EU, Labour (half-heartedly) and the BBC, it also recruited the US president.

As we now know from a former White House aide, David Cameron personally asked Barack Obama to issue the warning that Britain would be “at the back of the queue” for a US trade deal if it left the EU. The president duly obliged.

Is the Electoral Commission investigating whether the cost of Mr Obama’s visit was counted as an expense by the Remain campaign? And if not, why not? The presidential entourage of Air Force One, backup planes, Secret Service details and armoured limousines probably cost more than the entire Vote Leave budget. Unless there is parity in the Electoral Commission’s approach, this report will look like a politically motivated exercise timed to swing public opinion at a critical moment in the Brexit process.