RE: POG 1st Nov 195 Nov 2019 15:23
hI KRSS, Th UK prime minister broke the rules
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/media-statement-vote-leave
Vote Leave has today (Friday 29 March 2019) withdrawn its appeal and related proceedings against the Electoral Commission’s finding of multiple offences under electoral law, committed during the 2016 EU referendum campaign.
Vote Leave was the designated lead campaigner for the leave outcome at the referendum. We found that it broke the electoral rules set out by Parliament to ensure fairness, confidence, and legitimacy at an electoral event. Serious offences such as these undermine public confidence in our system and it is vital, therefore, that they are properly investigated and sanctioned
Vote Leave has now paid its £61,000 fine in full.
Ends
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/year-ago-today-vote-leave-was-found-have-broken-election-law-next-week-its-leader-will-become-prime-minister/
The Electoral Commission found that Vote Leave broke the law. Next week, the man who fronted that campaign is almost certain to become prime minister.
The finding came on the back of months of investigative journalism. Alongside Carole Cadwalladr at The Observer and reporters at Buzzfeed, we gathered documents and spoke to sources and collated evidence.
Eventually, our collective coverage forced the Electoral Commission to reopen an investigation they had previously closed. Eventually, the watchdog of our democracy said that the campaign, fronted by Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, had exceeded its £7m spending limit by £449,079.34.
For exceeding its spending limit by hundreds of thousands of pounds, Vote Leave was fined £20,000. The group was fined another £20,000 for failing to comply with the commission’s investigation, a further £20,000 for filing false information, and £1,000 for failing to produce invoices to evidence what it said it had spent: a total of £61,000 of fines for £7.5 million of spending, or less than 1% of the total.
The commission wanted to fine Vote Leave more. But the law limits them – the maximum they are allowed to fine for a broken rule is £20,000.