UK's Brexit campaign group fined for overspending, referred to Scotland Yard

The official group that campaigned for Brexit has been fined 61,000 pounds for breaking spending limits in the 2016 EU membership referendum and the case has been reported to Scotland Yard, the UK's Electoral Commission said today.

Vote Leave, which proved victorious at the end of its campaign with 51.9 per cent voting for Brexit as against 48.1 per cent to Remain, was found guilty of funnelling cash with the help of a smaller pro-Brexit group called 'BeLeave' to get around campaign finance rules.

Darren Grimes, the founder of 'BeLeave' has been fined 20,000 pounds and reported to the Metropolitan Police, along with 'Vote Leave' official David Halsall.

The UK, on June 23, 2016, had voted in favour of leaving the 28-member European Union. It is scheduled to quit the bloc on March 29, 2019.

"The Electoral Commission has followed the evidence and conducted a thorough investigation into spending and campaigning carried out by 'Vote Leave' and 'BeLeave'," said Bob Posner, the commission's director of political finance and regulation.

"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," he said.

However, the findings of the Electoral Commission do not provide a legal basis to overturn the referendum results.

'Vote Leave' and the official Remain campaign group, 'Britain Stronger in Europe', were allowed to spend 7 million pounds each on campaigning in the run up to the referendum on June 23, 2016.

'Vote Leave' exceeded its legal spending limit by almost 500,000 pounds, the election watchdog found.

It concluded that spending carried out through smaller campaign groups towards companies like Canadian digital marketing firm Aggregate IQ were under the direction of 'Vote Leave' but not declared.

"These are serious breaches of the laws put in place by Parliament to ensure fairness and transparency at elections and referendums," said Posner.

'Vote Leave' also returned an "incomplete and inaccurate spending report", with almost 234,501 pounds reported incorrectly, and invoices missing for 12,849.99 pounds of spending, the watchdog said.

'Vote Leave' has said it was considering its options because the investigation's findings were "wholly inaccurate" and claimed they were politically motivated.

A 'Vote Leave' spokesperson said: "The Electoral Commission's report contains a number of false accusations and incorrect assertions that are wholly inaccurate and do not stand up to scrutiny.

"It is astonishing that nobody from 'Vote Leave' has been interviewed by the commission in the production of this report, nor indeed at any point in the past two years. Yet the commission has interviewed the so-called 'whistleblowers' who have no knowledge of how 'Vote Leave' operated and whose credibility has been seriously called into question."