Vote Leave used BeLeave ‘as way to overspend’

Vote Leave used a campaign group, BeLeave, as “a way to overspend, and they lied by saying there was no coordination” during the Brexit campaign, whistleblower Shahmir Sanni has told Channel 4 News.

Mr Sanni was speaking ahead of an Electoral Commission report, which is expected to find the official Brexit campaign guilty on four counts of breaking electoral law.

The allegations centre on a donation of £625000 made by Vote Leave to an organisation called BeLeave in the final days of the campaign. Almost all that money was directly paid to Aggregate IQ, the Canadian company that ran Vote Leave’s digital campaign.

Coordination between campaign groups is illegal. Vote Leave insists BeLeave was entirely separate from the official campaign and all spending decisions were taken independently.

But in March of this year, the BeLeave volunteer Shahmir Sanni told Channel 4 News his organisation’s activities were controlled and directed by Vote Leave and that the money was paid through BeLeave to circumvent the legal spending limits.

Mr Sanni and two other whistleblowers provided evidence to the Electoral Commission.

Channel 4 News has also reported on the activities of the Canadian company Aggregate IQ, which is being investigated by the Information Commissioner and her Canadian counterparts.

“When you look at a referendum that was won by 2%, and you’ve got the main campaign overspending by upwards of 10%, against the law, there is a real question about whether that is fair,” another whistleblower, Christopher Wylie, told Channel 4 News.

Mr Wylie, who revealed to Channel 4 News and The Observer in March that Cambridge Analytica had been using the data of 87 million Facebook users to help political parties target voters, added: “In sport when you cheat, you get disqualified, you lose your medal, you lose your trophy, and what Vote Leave is now saying is, essentially, we want to keep the Brexit trophy, even though we cheated.”

Matthew Elliott, Vote Leave’s former chief executive, announced today that the Electoral Commission was going to find that Vote Leave had broken the law in relation to overspending, ahead of the report being published.

Vote Leave submitted a 500 page dossier to the Electoral Commission refuting the claims. Matthew Elliott told Channel 4 News this morning that Mr Sanni and Mr Wylie were “fantasists” and maintained that what Vote Leave did was “entirely within the law”.

Mr Sanni was a Vote Leave volunteer straight out of university who later ran BeLeave with its founder, Darren Grimes. Asked whether he was a fantasist, Mr Sanni said: “It doesn’t matter what Matthew Elliott has to say, all everyone needs to do is look at the evidence. According to electoral law you cannot coordinate between two different campaign groups and you have spending limits.

“Spending limits keep elections and campaigns and referendums fair. Vote Leave used BeLeave as a way to overspend, and they lied by saying there was no coordination. As secretary, treasurer and research director of BeLeave, there was coordination, it was a coordinated campaign.

“There is evidence to show BeLeave was created by Vote Leave. There are emails that show that Vote Leave was coming up with the mission statement of BeLeave… there is more than enough evidence of there being a coordinated campaign and that is against electoral law.”

Mr Wylie also submitted evidence to the Electoral Commission’s inquiry. He said: “What is clearly apparent is BeLeave was asking for permission, was asking for advice, was essentially a subsidiary of VoteLeave and the reason why that is important for people to understand is that means that BeLeave was a vehicle to break the law, was a vehicle to overspend, as much as 10%.”

Asked about the truth of his claims, Mr Sanni said: “You don’t go through the things that I have done or that I have gone through, if you’re not sure. I have staked a lot in order to, I know it sounds cheesy, but to protect British democracy. Why would I do that if I didn’t believe in what I am saying or wasn’t supported by so much evidence?”

VoteLeave and all those involved in the campaign continue to deny the allegations and any wrongdoing.