Former Vote Leave chief Matthew Elliott defended his group's actions
The official Brexit marketing campaign is expected to be discovered responsible of 4 prices of breaking electoral regulation, the BBC has been informed.
The draft of an investigation into Vote Leave concludes it broke spending limits and failed to adjust to a number of the guidelines.
It additionally imposes fines as a results of its findings.
But the group's former chief govt claimed the Electoral Commission had not adopted due course of.
Matthew Elliott has submitted a 500-page file to the Electoral Commission rebutting the claims.
The commission mentioned Vote Leave had taken the "unusual step" of going public having seen the draft report.
As said by Vote Leave's file, the commission finds the marketing campaign group:
- Made an inaccurate return of marketing campaign expenditure
- Is lacking invoices and receipts
- Failed to adjust to a statutory discover, and
- Exceeded its spending restrict
Crucially, the draft report is claimed to declare there was coordination between Vote Leave and a smaller marketing campaign, BeLeave, which acquired a donation of greater than £600,000 within the closing weeks of the referendum, after recommendation from the Vote Leave director Dominic Cummings.
For months there have been allegations that the 2 campaigns broke the principles by working collectively too carefully. The electoral guidelines stipulate that completely different marketing campaign teams can work loosely collectively however they need to not have a "common plan".
This has at all times been denied by the 2 teams and has been investigated twice already by the Electoral Commission.
Vote Leave now admits there was e mail correspondence between the donor in query, Anthony Clake, and Mr Cummings about passing the donation onto BeLeave.
It is known that this third investigation concludes that there was a "common plan", and due to this fact the regulation was damaged.
A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission mentioned: "The commission has concluded its investigation and, having reached preliminary findings, offered Vote Leave with a 28-day interval to make any additional or new representations. That interval ended on Tuesday three July.
"The unusual step taken by Vote Leave in sharing its views on the Electoral Commission's initial findings does not affect the process set out in law."
It mentioned it could give "due considerations" to representations it had acquired after which publish a "thorough and detailed closing report in order to provide a full and balanced account".
Speaking to the BBC, Mr Elliott mentioned the commission had "listened to one side of the story".
"We offered to go in for interviews, both at board level and at staff level," he mentioned.
"They haven't accepted any interviews from our side."
Mr Elliott mentioned he thought Vote Leave had "acted both within the letter of the law and also the spirit of the law", and that it was completely legit that they might "work alongside other groups and encourage them and encourage their activities".
He denied that he was merely making an attempt to deflect the approaching criticism of the marketing campaign.
"We're saying 'can they take a look at our facet of the story?''', he mentioned, including that they might take authorized motion to attempt to overturn the costs in the event that they weren't withdrawn.
Tamsin Allen, the solicitor who represents the whistleblowers who went public with claims that Vote Leave broke the regulation, mentioned: "Vote Leave might not like this conclusion, however there's clearly a correct evidential foundation for it.
"The commission should be permitted to complete its work and we await the release of its final report."
A spokesman for Anthony Clake, whose donation was given to BeLeave on the suggestion of Mr Cummings, mentioned: "Mr Clake was informed by Mr Cummings that Vote Leave was reaching its spending limits, so he prompt that he might give it to BeLeave as a substitute, which he did.
"Any alleged collusion between the campaigns is a matter for them."