The 2016 referendum can’t be invalidated, even if the Leave campaign cheated. But the new evidence that has emerged in the last day strengthens the case for the people to vote on the Brexit deal Theresa May finally clinches.
The latest allegations suggest Vote Leave may have broken laws designed to limit spending during the referendum by funnelling cash through a supposedly independent campaign which may actually have been a puppet operation. The laws are there to help ensure a fair battle for the hearts and minds of the public.
The official Leave campaign was only allowed to spend £7 million during the referendum on things like advertising. Vote Leave gave BeLeave £625,000 in the last days of the referendum because it was bumping up against the £7 million spending limit. The key question is whether these two groups operated independently.
The Electoral Commission has no power to cancel the 2016 result. Even if it concludes that the law was broken, it can only impose fines and refer the matter to the Crown Prosecution Service. The CPS could prosecute, but judges can’t force a new referendum either. They can merely impose penalties on anybody found guilty.
But Parliament and the public can take action if they believe our democracy has been polluted by cheating. It wouldn’t be sensible to order a rerun referendum. However, they could demand that the people get a vote on the Brexit deal.
The allegations have been made by three whistleblowers, one of them Shahmir Sanni, who was Be Leave’s secretary, treasurer and research director during the referendum. Sanni told Channel 4 News he still thinks the UK should quit the EU, “but I don’t agree with losing what it means to be British in that process; losing what it means to follow the rules; losing what it means to be quite literally a functioning democracy.”
Vote Leave, Dominic Cummings, the mastermind behind its campaign, and Darren Grimes, the other key figure in BeLeave apart from Sanni, deny the allegations. Cummings told the Observer: “The allegations about illegal donations to BeLeave are false and are part of a campaign to cancel the referendum result.” Grimes told the paper any allegations he had done anything wrong were “damaging” and “untrue”.
Boris Johnson, the main face of Vote Leave, tweeted: “Observer/C4 story utterly ludicrous, #VoteLeave won fair & square – and legally.”
A key plank in Cummings’ defence is his allegation in a blog that the Electoral Commission gave Vote Leave the green light to make donations to BeLeave. But in evidence presented to the High Court, the Electoral Commission only said it was fine for Vote Leave to donate money to other campaigners and not report it as part of its own spending as long as it was donated “without having a co-ordinated plan”.
The key question then is whether Vote Leave and BeLeave were coordinating their activities. A pile of new evidence is now in the public domain. The key bits are published on Fair Vote, a new campaigning website. Voters can read the source material and make up their own minds. But, to me, the evidence looks pretty damning.
InFacts has published a second article detailing the key allegations and the evidence supporting them.
Hugo Dixon’s daughter works for Fair Vote.
Source material
- The Fair Vote website has much of the new evidence
- The Observer’s main news story
- The Observer’s long feature containing more information
- Shamir Sanni’s video interview with the Observer
- Channel 4’s main story
- The New York Times story
- Dominic Cummings’ blog
- Earlier evidence provided to High Court about links between Vote Leave and BeLeave
- High Court judgement on judicial review into the Electoral Commission
- Electoral Commission statement on opening an investigation into Vote Leave and Darren Grimes
- Buzzfeed story from August 2016
