Tories in revolt

SIR – Your report (“Grassroots in open revolt over May’s Brexit”, July 29) is certainly true.

At a recent meeting in our village hall, our MP, Kwasi Kwarteng, outlined Britain’s position, as he saw it, in the Brexit negotiations. When the question and answer session started, it became clear that a very large majority of the Tory activists present had little or no faith in Theresa May – never mind her ability to secure a deal.

Mrs May’s “strength” is Jeremy Corbyn. Tory MPs dare not challenge her for fear of putting him in power.

Desmond Mulvany Shepperton, Middlesex

SIR – I was flattered to feature in your article. However, I also said that Maidenhead Conservative Association fully supported the Prime Minister; that I had attended Gavin Barwell’s presentation at Downing Street with 70 other chairmen who seemed to be supportive; and that we had received very few messages of criticism.

Where is the revolt?

Richard Kellaway Chairman, Maidenhead Conservative Association

SIR – Greg Hands (“Endless digging into referendum spending is a threat to our democracy”, July 29) focuses on our investigation into the campaign spending of Vote Leave and Be Leave.

Mr Hands asserts that Vote Leave donated to other campaigns “with the permission of the Electoral Commission”. This is incorrect. Vote Leave asked for advice about donating banners, and we gave advice explaining the rules on donations and joint working. Vote Leave never asked for advice about donations to Darren Grimes, the Be Leave campaigner.

Mr Hands also asserts that the Commission is reliant upon one piece of evidence, and that we “uncritically report the claims” of “whistleblowers”. This is again incorrect. We must be satisfied to the criminal standard of proof – beyond reasonable doubt – that an offence has been committed. In this case we examined financial data, meeting minutes, interview transcripts and significant amounts of email and other correspondence. We are satisfied that this evidence shows a number of offences were committed.

Mr Hands repeats Vote Leave’s claims that we refused to interview their representatives. However, our report sets out the repeated attempts we made to interview Vote Leave between December 2017 and February 2018. Months into our investigation, certain staff members separately offered to be interviewed, but by then we had gathered sufficient evidence to prove offences had occurred. Those individuals made written representations, which we considered when reaching the final conclusions.

The laws we enforce were put in place by Parliament to give all of us confidence in our democratic processes. Our detailed statutory findings on breaches of the law are publicly available.

Claire Bassett Chief Executive, Electoral Commission London EC1