Vote Leave broke electoral law, Electoral Commission expected to say

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-44704561

Remember Farage saying that the fight would go on if the vote was 52/48 in favour of remain? I wonder what he and other leave voters would be saying about this news if the vote had gone 52/48 to Remain and the Electoral Commission's report had found that it had broken rules in the way it's alleged the Leave side did?

Gove and Boris heavily involved in this, and yet the news is leaked on the morning after an England World Cup win. Normally Electoral Commission stuff is watertight. Is this a coincidence, that high ranking ministers are involved and the impact of the actual report has been softened with the leak?

Must be a coincidence. Must be.

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Originally Posted by ninianclark

Brexit wont happen, it will be made so difficult that the only alternative will be to rejoin - and on much worse terms than when we left

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If Brexit won't happen, how can we rejoin? We won't have left.

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Originally Posted by ninianclark

The main issue seems to be the 2 groups were working too closely together as they had emailed each other :sherlock:

What about all the 'individuals' and businesses that took their own adverts out in newspapers, and went on various TV debates, and attended meetings campaigned for both predominantly Remain. Was their spending controlled / restricted / monitored ?

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As I understand it, the emails were evidence that Vote Leave had 'donated' the money but then told the group how they should be spending their money. One of them was asked if they could have done their own thing and replied "We didn’t ever feel like we had that level of control. That’s what I mean, we never felt like we had control over the organisation itself.”

Individuals and businesses were not part of the official campaign. It's like saying should the Daily Mail and Express have been controlled, restricted and monitored.

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Originally Posted by ninianclark

If that is the case the law is an ass then. The 2 official 'parties' had funds restricted to x amount - whilst at the same time 'big business' can throw money at a referendum decision, as much money as they want without restriction. I get your point - newspapers (I think) were equally split on it - with a few showing both sides of the debate.

Here is Richard Branson starting his own vote Remain campaign (nb Branson is a tax exile , lives in the Virgin Islands)

https://www.theguardian.com/business...tain-in-the-eu

Then there is always Alan Milburn ex Labour MP - who works for both Branson and Blair and there is always the fact that Branson offered this group both money and office space - nothing to see there then obviously :sherlock: , Im sure there are many other incidents like this - on both sides.

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I actually don't believe in a second referendum but the argument that 'well, remain were cheating too' makes me more likely to favour scrapping the result and doing the vote over again with tighter rules.

It feels like the electoral commission may as well not exist, every time we go out to vote somebody breaks the rules and then we go through all this fuss to give them a tiny fine.

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Originally Posted by ninianclark

They would be saying what Remainers are saying now.

VoteLeave from what I read said "But the group's former chief executive claimed the Electoral Commission had not followed due process.

Matthew Elliott has submitted a 500-page dossier to the Electoral Commission rebutting the claims.

The commission said Vote Leave had taken the "unusual step" of going public having seen the draft report.

According to Vote Leave's dossier, the commission finds the campaign group:

made an inaccurate return of campaign expenditure
is missing invoices and receipts
failed to comply with a statutory notice
exceeded its spending limit"

The main issue seems to be the 2 groups were working too closely together as they had emailed each other :sherlock:

What about all the 'individuals' and businesses that took their own adverts out in newspapers, and went on various TV debates, and attended meetings campaigned for both predominantly Remain. Was their spending controlled / restricted / monitored ?

All this stuff seems to be the work of groups and individuals - Clegg, Blair, Mandelson etc that are determined to make it so complex the electorate give up. It happened in Denmark, Holland and Ireland and Norway when the EU didnt get the result it wanted - they asked them again after threatening to make things difficult etc.

Too late to go back now, like telling your Mrs you dont love her, dont want to live with her anymore etc - and then go back a year later - saying sorry can we get back together.

Simple really - we sell them things, they sell us things. Lets have some standards on things as well, even have an industrial currency for businesses to use. We'd just like to have a control on immigration, a sovereign Parliament, control our own fishing waters and be able to decide where else we buy and sell goods and services - like other non EU countries do. This is simple - yet for people that want 1 Europe, 1 Defence force, 1 currency and 1 sovereign parliament - with an un-elected commission - this seems impossible to grasp, oh and add in 4 new countries joining with unemployment rates approx 30% joining within 5 years.

Brexit wont happen, it will be made so difficult that the only alternative will be to rejoin - and on much worse terms than when we left

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Campaign expenditure from individuals and businesses was indeed monitored by the Electoral Commission if that expenditure was over £10k. Any party planning expenditure over that amount had to first register the intent with the Electoral Commission. If you were not a political party that participated in the previous General Election then campaign expenditure was capped at a maximum of £700k. This was all set out along with the rules in a guidance document. So not really a free for all. Presumably it is against this guidance that the reported breach by Vote Leave is being evaluated and applied.

Contrary to your assertion, the Electoral Commission's records show a slightly greater total overall reported expenditure for Leave £16m, against £15m for Remain.

The guidance and records of receipted expenditure are relatively easily sourced but copied here for ease.

http://search.electoralcommission.or...tCols=DatePaid

http://www.electoralcommission.org.u...ampaigners.pdf

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Originally Posted by ninianclark

How much was spent by various 3rd parties on Google Adwords re Leave / Remain, how much traffic was generated by twitter bots, advertising with Google Search partners like YouTube etc.

There is lots of areas of the voting landscape that has changed that the electoral commission has no control over.

Officially there was just about 10 main donors to the 2 sides , Lord Sainsbury (appointed Lord by Blair) donated 4.2 million according to the independent - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/u...-a7348321.html

Peter Hargreaves gave the out mob 3.2 million

To me it is a much of a muchness, most people I know formed their opinion by watching the TV debates


Here is a copy of the top 10

David Sainsbury (Remain) 4,223,234

Peter Hargreaves (Brexit) 3,200,000

Better for the Country (Brexit) 2,060,375

Jeremy Hosking (Brexit) 1,691,296

Diana Van Nievelt Price (Brexit) 1,000,000

Trailfinders Limited (Remain) 1,000,000

David Harding (Remain) 1,000,000

International Motors Ltd (Brexit) 850,000

Mark Coombs (Remain) 750,000

J C Bamford Excavators Ltd (Brexit) 670,000

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Your original point seemed to be around individuals and businesses having unregulated ability to spend outwith the regulated campaigns. As pointed out that was not the case as they are covered by the rules.

You now seem to be making a slightly different point about the concentration of donations that a few rich individuals made to the official campaigns or political parties which would have then been spent either legally or in the case of Vote Leave, a proportion allegedly illegally, in running those campaigns.

I do find all this amusing , as if anyone voting to leave would listen to this group anyway ,is perhaps fanciful at best , the anti foreigner , anti European ,or anti migrant or anti anything authoritative, had made their minds up without any help from anyone ,never mind some cocked right wing funded statement of group,hence the massive turnout .

And then they voted left wing in the next election who were more supportive of staying put and opening ones borders , nutters.

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Originally Posted by ninianclark

on a side issue - I note that today Merkel it seems apparently that she has had her arm bent by Austria, Hungary and Italy and has given in re closing the southern European border route

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She's also just changed her mind on auto tarrifs. If the US are going to be calling the shots, wouldn't we be better off following them, rather than a weakened Merkel/EU? Trump is dismantling globalist ideology at a rapid pace, so what is the point even being in the EU anymore?

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Originally Posted by Wales-Bales

She's also just changed her mind on auto tarrifs. If the US are going to be calling the shots, wouldn't we be better off following them, rather than a weakened Merkel/EU? Trump is dismantling globalist ideology at a rapid pace, so what is the point even being in the EU anymore?

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When it comes to slavishly following the current US administration I would have you down as an early adopter!

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Originally Posted by cyril evans awaydays

When it comes to slavishly following the current US administration I would have you down as an early adopter!

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You know it makes sense, now is the time to leave the EU in our slipstream. We know which way the rest of world will be going.

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Originally Posted by Wales-Bales

You know it makes sense, now is the time to leave the EU in our slipstream. We know which way the rest of world will be going.

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We are out all this is tosh

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Originally Posted by Eric Cartman

I actually don't believe in a second referendum but the argument that 'well, remain were cheating too' makes me more likely to favour scrapping the result and doing the vote over again with tighter rules.

It feels like the electoral commission may as well not exist, every time we go out to vote somebody breaks the rules and then we go through all this fuss to give them a tiny fine.

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Exactly, I'm just waiting for the message from him saying Corbyn, or possibly Welsh Labour, is to blame for it all.

Confirmation that Leave campaign(s) broke the law;-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44856992

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Originally Posted by the other bob wilson

Confirmation that Leave campaign(s) broke the law;-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44856992

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Lets have a new referendum .

I note there have been a number of electoral digressions and fines over the years , with regards to election law , from both main parties.

https://www.politico.eu/article/260-cases-of-electoral-fraud-reported-in-uk-in-2016/

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Originally Posted by the other bob wilson

Confirmation that Leave campaign(s) broke the law;-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44856992

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Confirmation?

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Originally Posted by ninianclark

If we accept the vote result - then leaving the EU means just that - leaving the single market and customs union. That is the starting position, anything else is then up for discussion, but being in 'the' single market and in 'the' customs union is not an option as that means you are 'in' the EU - which is not 'leaving' the EU.

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I can guarantee that if the referendum 2 years ago had 2 options - remain or leave everything, EU, single market and customs union, remain would have won by several percent.

The leave campaign wouldn't have allowed this. They needed as ambiguous as referendum as possible. Plenty voted to leave the EU but only if we were staying in the single market.