Vote Leave fined and referred to police for breaking electoral law

The move follows a probe into campaign spending.

The commission said its investigation found "significant evidence" of joint working between lead campaigner, Vote Leave, and another campaign group, BeLeave.

The commission said: "Evidence shows that BeLeave spent more than £675,000 with Aggregate IQ under a common plan with Vote Leave.

"This spending should have been declared by Vote Leave.

"It means Vote Leave exceeded its legal spending limit of £7 million by almost £500,000.

"Vote Leave also returned an incomplete and inaccurate spending report, with nearly £234,501 reported incorrectly, and invoices missing for £12,849.99 of spending.

"Darren Grimes, the founder of the BeLeave campaign group, was found to have committed two offences and has been fined £20,000.

"Mr Grimes spent more than £675,000 on behalf of BeLeave, a non-registered campaigner that had a spending limit of £10,000.

"Further, he wrongly reported that same spending as his own.

"The commission has now referred both Mr David Halsall, the responsible person for Vote Leave, and Mr Grimes to the Metropolitan Police in relation to false declarations of campaign spending."

The commission imposed fines of £61,000 on Vote Leave.

Bob Posner, the Electoral Commission's director of political finance and regulation and legal counsel, said: "Vote Leave has resisted our investigation from the start, including contesting our right as the statutory regulator to open the investigation.

"It has refused to cooperate, refused our requests to put forward a representative for interview, and forced us to use our legal powers to compel it to provide evidence.

"Nevertheless, the evidence we have found is clear and substantial, and can now be seen in our report."

Posner added: "The Electoral Commission has followed the evidence and conducted a thorough investigation into spending and campaigning carried out by Vote Leave and BeLeave.

"We found substantial evidence that the two groups worked to a common plan, did not declare their joint working and did not adhere to the legal spending limits.

"These are serious breaches of the laws put in place by Parliament to ensure fairness and transparency at elections and referendums.

"Our findings relate primarily to the organisation which put itself forward as fit to be the designated campaigner for the 'leave' outcome."

Evidence shows BeLeave spent more than £675,000 with Aggregate IQ under a common plan with Vote Leave, which should have been declared by Vote Leave, the commission said.

It means Vote Leave exceeded its legal spending limit of £7 million by almost £500,000, the statement added.

A Vote Leave spokesman said: "The Electoral Commission's report contains a number of false accusations and incorrect assertions that are wholly inaccurate and do not stand up to scrutiny.

"It is astonishing that nobody from Vote Leave has been interviewed by the commission in the production of this report, nor indeed at any point in the past two years, despite Vote Leave repeatedly making it clear they are willing to do so.

"Yet the commission has interviewed the so-called 'whistleblowers' who have no knowledge of how Vote Leave operated and whose credibility has been seriously called into question."

It added: "All this suggests that the supposedly impartial commission is motivated by a political agenda rather than uncovering the facts.

"The commission has failed to follow due process, and in doing so has based its conclusions on unfounded claims and conspiracy theories.

"We will consider the options available to us, but are confident that these findings will be overturned."

Electoral Commission chief executive Claire Bassett told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Over a three-month period we actually made five attempts to interview Vote Leave and we were unable to.

"We have in fact issued a record fine for failure to cooperate with a statutory notice because we found it so difficult to get Vote Leave to work with us in this investigation.