The United Kingdom Electoral Commission imposed a fine on Tuesday 17 July on Vote Leave, the official leave campaign, for infringing the UK electoral code in the June 2016 referendum campaign won by those who wanted UK to withdraw from the European Union.
The Electoral Commission “conducted a thorough investigation” into spending and campaigning carried out by Vote Leave, that was fronted by Boris Johnston, and pro-Brexit youth group BeLeave. Neither declared their joint working or respected legal spending limits, the Electoral Commission said.
BeLeave, founded by student Darren Grimes, spent more than £675,000 on the services of digital marketing firm AggregateIQ “under a common plan with Vote Leave”. “This spending should have been declared by Vote Leave”, meaning that the Vote Leave exceeded its spending limit by almost £500,000.
Vote Leave has been fined £61,000 and the founder of BeLeave, Grimes, £20,000.
The fines come after the revelations of whistleblower Christopher Wylie on the company Cambridge Analytica, which allegedly harvested the data of millions of Facebook and used them without permission for political ends and allegedly worked with AggregateIQ to help the Vote Leave campaign sway the vote.
Wylie has said that he does not believe that Brexit would have happened without the Cambridge Analytica technologies and the use of the data.
The European Commission declined to comment on Tuesday, taking the view that the situation in the United Kingdom is already sufficiently complicated. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic and Marion Fontana)