The former International development secretary, Priti Patel is writing to the Electoral Commission to urge an investigation into Britain Stronger in Europe (BSE), now Open Britain, regarding whether they breached the rules to get round strict spending limits.
Patel urges for an investigation into claims about unlawful coordination between campaigns that pushed Britain to stay in the European Union in the 2016 referendum campaign.
Vote Leave, BSE's opponents, are also under investigation. The Electoral Commission said it had “reasonable grounds to suspect an offence may have been committed.”
Both campaigns for leave and remain had during the referendum had strict limits on spending, and BSE and Vote Leave both were forbidden from spending over £7 million each.
The other campaign groups on each side which registered with the commission, were given a spending limit of £700,000, but were proscribed from coordinating with the main campaign group.
It is said that Priti Patel wants the commission to investigate the five campaigns in favour of Remain in the last month of the referendum, where they are alleged to have received over £1 million in donations.
Priti Patel said, “There needs to be a thorough investigation into the actions, expenditure and financial probity of Remain campaigners, who appear to have flouted the rules and the spirit of the law to advance their cause on concert with each other. It cannot be right that Remain campaigners can so blatantly flout the rules to feed the British people their propaganda. As well as coordinating campaigning and spending they used every organ of the British state to try to bully people into staying in the EU. They even spent £9 million of taxpayers' money on a campaign leaflet breaking the normal rules of fair play of our democratic system.”
A spokesperson for BSE stated, “Britain Stronger in Europe always complied fully with Electoral Commission rules on working together and included any instances of it happening in our return to the Electoral Commission.”
The commission's spokeswoman stated, “We continue to consider a number of issues arising from the EU referendum under our enforcement processes, including as formal investigations.”
