Brexit Leave Campaign: Lawbreakers?

The Brexit referendum in 2016 saw a close result, with 51.9% voting to leave the European Union. The campaign was not without controversy, and there have been questions about the legality of the actions of the Leave campaign groups. The Electoral Commission found that Vote Leave broke electoral law by exceeding its £7 million spending limit, and the group was fined £61,000. Leave.EU was also fined £70,000 for failing to report its spending, but the Metropolitan Police later halted the investigation, citing insufficient evidence to justify further criminal investigation.

Vote Leave broke electoral law by exceeding spending limits

The official Brexit campaign group Vote Leave was fined £61,000 for breaking electoral law by exceeding the £7 million spending limit for the 2016 referendum. The Electoral Commission found that Vote Leave funnelled £675,315 through the pro-Brexit youth group BeLeave, which helped ensure Vote Leave did not breach its £7 million spending limit.

Vote Leave bosses said they were given the go-ahead to give the money to BeLeave and that they had acted within the rules. However, the Commission found significant evidence of joint working between the two groups, concluding that Vote Leave should have declared the spending as its own.

The founder of BeLeave, Darren Grimes, was fined £20,000 and referred to the police, along with Vote Leave official David Halsall. Grimes said he had been persecuted for nothing more than engaging in the democratic process and that it had been appalling for [his] family. Vote Leave also returned an incomplete and inaccurate spending report, with nearly £234,501 reported incorrectly, and invoices missing for a total of £12,849.99 of spending.

Vote Leave initially denied the allegations, claiming that the report contained "false accusations and incorrect assertions". They accused the Electoral Commission of being politically motivated and not following due process. However, in December 2024, Vote Leave dropped its appeal, stating that it had run out of money to pursue the case, despite being confident that [it] would have prevailed on the facts in Court.

Vote Leave fined for sending spam texts

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) fined Vote Leave, the official Brexit campaign, £40,000 for sending out nearly 200,000 unsolicited text messages in the run-up to the 2016 EU referendum. The ICO stated that Vote Leave was unable to prove that everyone who received the messages had consented to the contact, which is a key part of electronic marketing law.

Vote Leave said it had gathered phone numbers from people who had contacted it through website enquiries, texts received in response to other promotions, and from running its own football competition. According to the ICO, Vote Leave claimed to have deleted records of consent, phone numbers, and the volume of messages sent and received since the referendum. Vote Leave also stated that the evidence was deleted with the agreement of the ICO.

The ICO put the number of messages at 194,154 or 196,154, with the majority including a link to the Vote Leave website alongside information about its ambitions. The ICO highlighted that "spam texts are a real nuisance for millions of people and we will take action against organisations who disregard the law."

In addition to the fine for spam text messages, Vote Leave was also fined £61,000 for breaking electoral law over spending limits. The Electoral Commission found that Vote Leave funnelled £675,315 through the pro-Brexit youth group BeLeave, exceeding its £7 million spending limit. Vote Leave initially appealed the fine, stating that the watchdog's findings were "wholly inaccurate" and politically motivated, but later dropped the appeal, citing a lack of financial resources to continue.

Leave.EU fined for breaking electoral law

Leave.EU, the Brexit campaign group founded by Arron Banks and spearheaded by Nigel Farage, was fined £70,000 by the Electoral Commission in 2018 for breaking electoral law. The group was found to have exceeded its spending limit by at least 10%, as well as delivering incomplete and inaccurate spending and transaction returns.

The Electoral Commission found that Leave.EU ""exceeded its spending limit and failed to declare its funding and its spending correctly". The group's spending return was incorrect by £77,380 but "may well have been considerably higher", according to the Commission. This included failing to include money spent on US campaign strategists Goddard Gunster before the referendum officially began. The Commission also found that Leave.EU inaccurately reported three loans it had received from companies controlled by Banks.

In addition, the group failed to provide the required invoice or receipt for 97 payments of over £200, totalling £80,224. The Commission described these as ""serious offences".

Scotland Yard confirmed that the Commission had referred a potential criminal offence under section 123(4) of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. The Metropolitan Police said there was "insufficient evidence" to justify any further criminal investigation and that Leave.EU would face no further police action.

Vote Leave referred to police for breaking spending laws

The Vote Leave campaign was fined £61,000 and referred to the police for breaking electoral law, according to the UK's independent Electoral Commission. The commission's report, published in July 2018, found that Vote Leave exceeded its £7 million spending limit by funnelling £675,315 through the pro-Brexit youth group BeLeave. This meant that Vote Leave's total spending amounted to £7,449,079, almost £500,000 over the limit.

The founder of BeLeave, Darren Grimes, was fined £20,000 and referred to the police, along with Vote Leave official David Halsall. Grimes was found to have committed two offences: spending more than £675,000 on behalf of BeLeave, a non-registered campaigner with a spending limit of £10,000, and wrongly reporting that spending as his own.

Bob Posner, from the Electoral Commission, said: "We found substantial evidence that the two groups worked to a common plan, did not declare their joint working and did not adhere to the legal spending limits. These are serious breaches of the laws put in place by Parliament to ensure fairness and transparency at elections and referendums."

Vote Leave rejected the Electoral Commission's findings, claiming that the report was "wholly inaccurate" and politically motivated. In a statement, the campaign group said: "Vote Leave has provided evidence to the Electoral Commission proving there was no wrongdoing... All this suggests that the supposedly impartial commission is motivated by a political agenda rather than uncovering the facts."

Vote Leave initially appealed against the Electoral Commission's findings but dropped the appeal in December 2024, citing a lack of financial resources to continue.

Leave.EU fined for data law breaches

The Brexit campaign group Leave.EU was fined £70,000 in March for failing to declare "at least" £77,380 it spent on referendum campaigning. The Electoral Commission, the watchdog overseeing elections in the UK, referred Leave.EU chief executive Liz Bilney to the police following its investigation.

The group, which was fronted by then-UKIP leader Nigel Farage, was only allowed to spend £700,000 in the run-up to the referendum, after losing out to Vote Leave in the battle to be designated the official Leave campaign.

The Electoral Commission said the group incorrectly reported what it spent on the EU referendum, including failing to include at least £77,380 in its spending return. This meant the group exceeded the spending limit for non-party-registered campaigners by at least 10%.

Leave.EU co-founder Arron Banks called the fine a "politically motivated attack" and said he would take the watchdog to court. He also called for the resignation of the head of the Electoral Commission, accusing the regulator of "disgraceful political collusion" with several prominent remain-backing MPs.

In a separate case, the official pro-Brexit campaign group Vote Leave was fined £61,000 for breaking electoral law over spending limits, exceeding its £7 million spending limit for the vote. The founder of BeLeave, Darren Grimes, was fined £20,000 and referred to the police, along with Vote Leave official David Halsall.

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