Whistleblowers: Brexit campaign violated rules

LONDON — A group of whistleblowers on Monday questioned the integrity of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, presenting 50 pages of documents that they say prove the official Brexit campaign group violated election finance rules on the way to winning the 2016 referendum.

They allege that the official Vote Leave campaign circumvented spending limits by donating $888,000 to the pro-Brexit student group BeLeave but sending the money directly to campaign consultant AggregateIQ. The firm has longterm links to Cambridge Analytica, the British consultant accused of misusing Facebook data to help Donald Trump win the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the group says.

“This not about re-fighting the referendum,” Chris Wylie, the central figure in the original Cambridge Analytica revelations, told reporters at a packed news conference in London. “It’s about the integrity of the democratic process.”

The allegations have been presented to Britain’s Electoral Commission and come just days after a prominent Labour Party politician called for a second Brexit referendum once the true costs of leaving the bloc become clear. Britain voted to leave the EU in a June 2016 referendum, with 52 percent supporting Brexit.

They were first published last weekend as part of a wide-ranging investigation of Cambridge Analytica by Britain’s Observer newspaper, together with Channel Four and The New York Times. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said Monday that it is investigating Facebook’s privacy practices as a result of concerns raised by earlier stories in the series.

Campaign finance rules limited Vote Leave’s spending on the Brexit referendum to $9.96 million. When Vote Leave got close to that limit during the final weeks of the campaign, it made the donation to BeLeave, said Shahmir Sanni, a volunteer who helped run the grassroots group.