Failed Brexit ‘would be new Suez’

Judges say Electoral Commission told Vote Leave it could donate to another anti-EU campaign

BRITAIN will suffer its biggest “national humiliation” since the Suez crisis if the Government fails to deliver a clean Brexit, the leader of a 60-strong group of Eurosceptic Conservative MPs will warn this week.

In a speech on Thursday marking a year until the day of the UK’s official departure from the EU, Jacob ReesMogg is expected to say that if the country were “not to leave” or to find that the “transition” period became a permanent arrangement, it would cause “the most almighty smash to the national psyche that could be imagined”. It comes after EU leaders agreed details of a transition period that keeps the UK in the single market and customs union for 21 months after Brexit on March 29 2019. Two parliamentary committees want that period to be extended.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, states: “With a year to go until we leave the EU, I am more confident in Britain’s ability to thrive than ever before.”

On Thursday, the Prime Minister will

THE election watchdog misled the High Court during a dispute over the legality of a donation made by the official pro-Brexit campaign group during the 2016 referendum, judges have ruled.

The case relates to funds worth around £620,000, which were offered by Vote Leave to BeLeave, a separate group run by Darren Grimes, then a student activist. Mr Grimes asked for the money to be paid directly to AggregateIQ (AIQ), a Canadian IT company that carried out online targeted advertising campaigns.

A judgment issued last week said that a statement by the Electoral Commission was “misleading” in “asserting that it had never given advice that Vote Leave could lawfully make the donation it did”. It came after the Electoral Commission faced accusations of bias for declining to open an investigation into claims of Remain campaign groups breaching rules.

Election rules barred Vote Leave from directing BeLeave’s activities. Last night Shahmir Sanni, a former activist, claimed to Channel 4 News that Vote Leave effectively “used BeLeave to over-spend” beyond the £7million limit on its campaign expenses.

He alleged that the campaigns were “coordinated” and that he and Mr Grimes reported to Stephen Parkinson, then a Vote Leave staff member, who is now a senior aide to Theresa May.

Mr Parkinson and 10 Downing Street were under pressure after he released a statement revealing he had been in a relationship with Mr Sanni. He said he gave the whistleblower advice and encouragement in a personal capacity. Mr Sanni accused Mr Parkinson and No 10 of publicly disclosing his sexuality and putting his family in danger.

Last night Channel 4 News reported that Mr Sanni, along with two friends who also say they helped Vote Leave, gave the commission signed statements setting out how they believe the campaign group broke campaign rules.

The High Court judgment relates to an attempt by pro-Remain campaigners to overturn an initial ruling by the Electoral Commission last year that there were no reasonable grounds to suspect “any incorrect reporting of campaign spending or donations” by Vote Leave and Mr Grimes.

As part of the case, the Good Law Project, a group run by Jolyon Maugham, a QC, complained that the commission had advised Vote Leave that it could donate to other pro-Leave campaigns without those funds counting towards the £7million limit, and that this advice was “wrong”.

According to the judgment, the commission “stated that, as far as it was aware, no advice was ever given that Vote Leave could make the donation it did”. But Lord Justice Leggatt and Mr Justice Holgate concluded: “It seems to us that, in asserting that it had never given advice that Vote Leave could lawfully make the donation it did, the Commission was making a statement which, though literally true, was misleading.

“It was true that the Commission had not given advice to Vote Leave that the specific payments to AIQ would not need to be reported as referendum expenses. But the Commission had given advice to Vote Leave which, when applied to the payments to AIQ, carried that clear implication (provided there was no common plan).”

The judges rejected three of the Good Law Project’s grounds of appeal against the commission’s initial decision last year to clear Vote Leave of wrongdoing, but allowed an appeal on one ground. Mr Parkinson and Mr Sanni were allegedly introduced by Christopher Wylie, who disclosed the data-harvesting scandal at Cambridge Analytica, the consultancy accused of harvesting the data of Facebook users.

On Friday night enforcement officers for the Information Commissioner spent nearly seven hours searching Cambridge Analytica’s central London premises overnight. Cambridge Analytica and Facebook deny wrongdoing.

The Electoral Commission said it would not comment on the court judgment because of ongoing legal action.

Mr Parkinson said: “I am clear that I did not direct the activities of any separate campaign groups.” He said his relationship with Mr Sanni could not “have remained private” once Mr Sanni had publicised his claims. Vote Leave said it had “twice been cleared on this matter by the Electoral Commission”.

‘The Commission was making a statement which, though literally true, was misleading’

SIR – However much the Government may want to protect the financial services industry in any post-Brexit agreement, once our fishing stocks are depleted we cannot eat money.

The current predation of our stocks of sole by Dutch fishermen can only give us an inkling of the fate that awaits the rest of our fishing stocks if we leave them to EU management during the proposed transition period. Elizabeth Marshall

Edinburgh

SIR – Last week Nigel Farage threw dead haddock into the Thames as an act of political protest.

The last live haddock to be recovered from the Thames was me, after I fell in the river as a small child in 1951. Why is it now symbolic to cast dead haddock into a river where they never lived? Peter Haddock

Chatham, Kent

SIR – There has been an outcry at the decision to have a French company manufacture new British passports.

However, De La Rue, the preferred British manufacturer, also produces passports for several foreign countries. Is it therefore OK for a British company to produce foreign passports but not OK for a foreign company to produce British passports? Barrie McKay

South Cerney, Gloucestershire