The Post Referendum Chronology

Home , BeLeave, Darren Grimes, Leave Means Leave, Vote Leave

(1) March 2017, at the American Association of Political Consultants (AAPC) awards, held at Huntington Beach CA, Goddard Gunster win the ‘International Consultant of the Year Award’ for their work with LeaveEU and Nigel Farage. Farage gives the award acceptance speech.

(2) April 2017, the Electoral Commission announce an investigation into the activities of LeaveEU during the 2016 EU referendum.

(3) May 2017, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announces investigations into the political use of private data amid concerns over allegations involving an analytics firm linked to a Brexit campaign.

(4) September 2017, with the Electoral Commission refusing to investigate Vote Leave, they receive a ‘letter before claim’ from the ‘Good Law Project’ outlining their failure to take any action relating to expenditure of more than £620,000 on services provided by a company called Aggregate IQ, further to the same sum being passed from the designated lead campaigning organisation “Vote Leave” to Mr Darren Grimes, a registered campaigner for the referendum.

(5) October 2017, the Good Law Project issue proceedings challenging the conclusions reached by the Electoral Commission over the spending return of Vote Leave, Mr. Darren Grimes and BeLeave. Shortly afterwards, the Commission agree to re-open its investigation into the relevant transactions.

(6) November 2017, the Electoral Commission, having previously declined to investigate Vote Leave on two occasions, citing a lack of evidence, announce an investigation into Vote Leave, Mr. Darren Grimes, BeLeave and Veterans for Britain.

(7) January 2018, Vote Leave’s lawyers send a ‘Pre-Action Protocol Letter’ indicating that it intended to judicially review the opening of the investigation; but given more details on the decision to investigate, they take no further action.

(8) May 2018, the Electoral Commission announce the result of their investigation into LeaveEU. They find LeaveEU guilty of multiple breaches of electoral laws included in the ‘EU Referendum Act 2015’ and the ‘Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000’ (PPERA) and fine them a total of £70,000.

1 (9) July 2018, the Electoral Commission announce the result of their investigation into Vote Leave, Mr. Darren Grimes, BeLeave and Veterans for Britain. They find Vote Leave guilty of multiple breaches of PPERA and fine them £61,000. Mr. Darren Grimes is fined £20,000 for an offence under section 117(3) PPERA and BeLeave committed an offence under section 117(4) PPERA. Mr. Darren Grimes is also guilty of an offence under section 117(3) PPERA but in light of the £20,000 fine the Electoral Commission decided not to impose a further fine. Veterans for Britain committed an offence under section 122(4)(b) PPERA and is fined £250.

(10) August 2018, the Electoral Commission decline to investigate the political party which props up the May government, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), over claims it coordinated its Brexit referendum campaign spending with Vote Leave in order to break legal spending limits. The Commission later disclose that even if it had found sufficient evidence of Vote Leave coordinating with the DUP, they decide that there would be no public interest in investigating the matter because Vote Leave had already been found to have coordinated with Mr. Darren Grimes.

(11) September 2018, the Electoral Commission lose a High Court legal challenge, from the Good Law Project, that argued the Commission failed in its duty to regulate the 2016 referendum. MR. Justice Leggatt ruled that the Commission had misunderstood the definition of ‘referendum expenses’ and, as a result of this misinterpretation, issued the wrong advice to Vote Leave in relation to £620,000 which Vote Leave sent, on behalf of Mr. Darren Grimes’ organisation, BeLeave, to a Canadian digital campaign company, AggregateIQ.

a) As a result of this ruling, Vote Leave claim, repeated by most media outlets, that this was the true reason for the massive discrepancy in their spending return and not that they had deliberately set out to circumvent strict spending regulations as the Electoral Commission had claimed.

b) Vote Leave Chief Executive, Matthew Elliott said at the time, “Vote Leave’s decision to give money to BeLeave rested on the advice we sought and were given from the Electoral Commission. We followed that advice, yet we were told that, by having followed that advice, we broke the law…the High Court has now ruled that this advice was wrong…today’s judgement effectively makes the Electoral Commission’s recent decision on Vote Leave redundant.” – see paragraph 24.

2 (12) November 2018, Shahmir Sanni, a Vote Leave / BeLeave whistleblower, wins his employment tribunal for wrongful dismissal against Tufton St entity, The Taxpayer’s Alliance (TPA). The TPA was founded by Matthew Elliott, Vote Leave’s Chief Executive. Mr. Sanni worked for the TPA following the 2016 EU referendum. By admitting to illegally sacking Mr. Sanni, the TPA were excused from disclosing communications between nine Tufton St entities - The TaxPayers’ Alliance, The office of Peter Whittle, former leader of the UK Independence Party, Civitas: Institute for the Study of Civil Society Europe, The Adam Smith Institute, Leave Means Leave, The Global Warming Policy Foundation, Brexit Central, The Centre for Policy Studies and The Institute for Economic Affairs - all of whom, according to the evidence provided by Mr. Sanni, attended regular co- ordination meetings during the 2016 EU referendum as part of their political campaigning.

(13) November 2018, Vote Leave and BeLeave lose a High Court Judicial Review aimed at getting the findings of the Electoral Commission overruled, they argue that the Electoral Commission did not have the authority to publish their findings. The judgment by Mrs Justice Yip declared: “I do not consider that the claimant’s grounds are arguable”.

(14) February 2019, LeaveEU and Eldon Insurance, owned by its founder Arron Banks, are fined £120,000 over data law breaches. The fines followed an Information Commissioner investigation into the misuse of personal data by political campaigns. The ICO investigation found that more than a million emails sent to LeaveEU subscribers contained marketing for the Eldon Insurance firm’s GoSkippy services. Eldon Insurance were also fined £60,000 for the breach. UK Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham said: “It is deeply concerning that sensitive personal data, gathered for political purposes, was later used for insurance purposes and vice versa.”

(15) February 2019, following an earlier December 2018 decision in the High Court, in which the judge ruled their case was out of time and lacked merit, Wilson and Others v The Prime Minister lose their appeal for a judicial review of the 2016 referendum, specifically the legal validity of the PMs decision and A50 notification (based solely on the outcome of the referendum as the mandate) which the appellant claimed was impaired by the unlawful referendum campaign, as per the Electoral Commission findings in May and July 2018.

(16) March 2019, the Central London County Court uphold the decision of the Electoral Commission to fine LeaveEU for four offences during the 2015 EU

3 referendum; aspects of LeaveEU’s appeal were allowed, namely that their £247,000 spend with political consultant ‘Goddard Gunster’ was not reportable as the judge found this was ‘political strategic advice’ to Mr. Arron Banks personally and as such was not a reportable expense under schedule 13 of PPERA. LeaveEU’s fine of £70,000 was reduced by £4,000 to £66,000.

a) Additionally, with regard to the £8m total, £6m + £2m, funding provided by Mr. Arron Banks, LeaveEU reported that “The loan agreement, to the LeaveEU campaign, was confirmed by the judge as being from Arron Banks and Rock Services was not a party to it.”

(17) March 2019, the UK privacy watchdog, the Information Commissioners Office, fine Vote Leave £40,000 for sending 196,154 unsolicited text messages during the EU referendum campaign.

(18) March 2019, Vote Leave withdraw their appeal against the Electoral Commission, paying fines and costs totalling £241,000.

(19) March 2019, Dominic Cummings, campaign director for Vote Leave, is found in contempt of parliament by ‘The House of Commons Committee of Privileges’ who said, “Cummings’ refusal to give oral evidence to MPs constituted a significant interference in the work of the inquiry.”

(20) May 2019, at the London Assembly, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Cressida Dick, confirms on camera, that, after twelve months, ‘assessments, not investigations’, of the evidence against LeaveEU and Vote Leave were coming to an end and a decision on whether to proceed to the investigation phase should be made in weeks, not months.

(21) July 2019, Mr. Darren Grimes wins an appeal, at the Central London County Court, against the Electoral Commission, with the judge ruling that the £20,000 fine be rescinded, adding that even if Mr. Grimes had committed an offence it would not have justified the maximum fine of £20,000.

(22) August 2019, the Metropolitan Police send a file on LeaveEU to the CPS for ‘early investigative advice’. In May 2018, the Electoral Commission had referred the responsible person at LeaveEU to the police because they were required, by law, to submit a complete and correct referendum return. It is an offence for that person to knowingly or recklessly make a false declaration. Civil sanctions do not attach to this offence; it can only be pursued via a criminal prosecution.

4 (23) September 2019, the Metropolitan Police, following the ‘early investigative advice’ from the CPS, conclude that, ‘whilst some technical breaches of electoral law were committed, there is insufficient evidence to justify any further criminal investigation into LeaveEU and cite that the Electoral Commission’s report into LeaveEU’s spending return should be read in conjunction with the County Court Judgment on 21st March 2019 (see paragraph 10) between LeaveEU Group Ltd and the Electoral Commission.

(24) September 2019, the Electoral Commission win an appeal over an interpretation of a point of law on referendum campaign donations and expenditure, which overturns an earlier High Court ruling from September 2018 – see paragraph 11b.

a) The High Court had ruled that three payments, totalling £620,000, made by Vote Leave Limited to an AggregateIQ, on behalf of Mr. Darren Grimes, who ran an unincorporated association called BeLeave, were “referendum expenses”. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, setting aside the previous order made by the High Court, and ruled that the correct interpretation of the legislation is that a donation to a campaigner cannot also be an expense incurred by the donor as maintained by the Electoral Commission.

b) The Electoral Commission welcomed the ruling that confirmed that they had correctly interpreted the law and welcomed the Appeal Courts ruling, saying, “In July 2018 we found significant evidence of undeclared joint spending between the lead campaigner in the EU referendum, Vote Leave, and another campaign group, BeLeave. We fined Vote Leave for this offence; they have since accepted and paid the fine.”

c) The Leave campaigns misinterpret the judgment, believing it to be another victory for the Leave campaigners. A typical example of the misinformation spread by the Leave campaigns and accepted by their supporters.

(25) September 2019, the NCA find no evidence of any criminal offences committed, under PPERA or company law, by Mr Banks, Ms Bilney, Better for the Country Ltd or Leave.EU and no further action will be taken.

(26) October 2019, to date, fifteen months since the Electoral Commission referred Vote Leave, the Metropolitan police have not reported on their assessment of the evidence presented to them on Vote Leave’s activities during the 2016 EU referendum.