Democracy? What democracy?

[Dominic]

If this is true, and I appreciate that they are only talking about expected findings, then it is clear that anybody saying the referendum result was a victory for democracy is talking a crock of guano.

_______________________________________________


https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-44704561

The official Brexit campaign is expected to be found guilty of four charges of breaking electoral law, the BBC has been told.

The draft of an investigation into Vote Leave concludes it broke spending limits and failed to comply with some of the rules.

It also imposes fines as a result of its findings.

But the group's former chief executive claimed the Electoral Commission had not followed due process.

Matthew Elliott has submitted a 500-page dossier to the Electoral Commission rebutting the claims.

The commission said Vote Leave had taken the "unusual step" of going public having seen the draft report.

According to Vote Leave's dossier, the commission finds the campaign group:

• Made an inaccurate return of campaign expenditure

• Is missing invoices and receipts

• Failed to comply with a statutory notice, and

• Exceeded its spending limit

Crucially, the draft report is said to claim there was coordination between Vote Leave and a smaller campaign, BeLeave, which received a donation of more than £600,000 in the closing weeks of the referendum, after advice from the Vote Leave director Dominic Cummings.

For months there have been allegations that the two campaigns broke the rules by working together too closely. The electoral rules stipulate that different campaign groups can work loosely together but they must not have a "common plan".

This has always been denied by the two groups and has been investigated twice already by the Electoral Commission.

Vote Leave now admits there was email correspondence between the donor in question, Anthony Clake, and Mr Cummings about passing the donation onto BeLeave.

It is understood that this third investigation concludes that there was a "common plan", and therefore the law was broken.

[Jimgym]

I hesitate to ask, but how did this affect how people voted?

[kingfisher]

Electoral Commission fines Remain campaigners £19000. [NB Max Fine £20000]

https://www.ft.com/content/2f91721d-951 ... 53897183c8

As most of the Media, Establishment, Big Business, “Academia”, Soros etc., were only taking on a bunch of old illiterate neanderthals groping around in the ruins of the post-industrial North, I can’t see for the life of me how Remain lost.

What you WON’T hear from the Brussels Broadcasting Corporation is that it has now transpired that Obama’s disgraceful and unwarranted intervention in the UK’s electoral process was contrived by Cameron and his remain sidekicks, who it turns out, helped write his speech. Proof is that anyone who has been further than the Isle of Dogs knows Americans do not use the term “Queue” [The UK will be at the back of the queue”].
Americans use the term “Line”.

[Firefly]

Kingfisher

I think we all knew that Obama was persuaded by the remain camp to add to the scaremongering, it was pretty obvious.

Jackie

[Dominic]

I hesitate to ask, but how did this affect how people voted?

Political campaigning effects how people vote. If it didn't, they wouldn't do it. The more money spent on a campaign, the more sway it will have.

[Dominic]

Electoral Commission fines Remain campaigners £19000. [NB Max Fine £20000]

https://www.ft.com/content/2f91721d-951 ... 53897183c8

As most of the Media, Establishment, Big Business, “Academia”, Soros etc., were only taking on a bunch of old illiterate neanderthals groping around in the ruins of the post-industrial North, I can’t see for the life of me how Remain lost.

What you WON’T hear from the Brussels Broadcasting Corporation is that it has now transpired that Obama’s disgraceful and unwarranted intervention in the UK’s electoral process was contrived by Cameron and his remain sidekicks, who it turns out, helped write his speech. Proof is that anyone who has been further than the Isle of Dogs knows Americans do not use the term “Queue” [The UK will be at the back of the queue”].
Americans use the term “Line”.

That article is behind a pay wall.

[kingfisher]

The FT article is copied and pasted below:
.
https://www.ft.com/content/2f91721d-951 ... 53897183c8

Electoral commission fines Remain campaigners £19,000. Financial Times, December 19, 2017

Remain campaigners have been fined £19,000 for failing to declare their spending properly during the EU referendum campaign. The Liberal Democrats were fined £18,000 by the Electoral Commission, near the legal maximum fine of £20,000, mainly for “failing to provide acceptable invoices or receipts for 80 payments”. “Where the rules are not followed, transparency is lost which is not in the public interest or as parliament intended,” said Bob Posner, the Commission’s legal counsel. Meanwhile, the official Remain campaign, then known as Britain Stronger in Europe, now Open Britain, has paid a £1,250 fine imposed for not providing three invoices and for declaring some spending in aggregate rather than individual payments. The Electoral Commission, Britain’s electoral watchdog, is still undertaking high-profile investigations into the official Leave campaign, Vote Leave, and another major Brexit group, Leave.EU and its founder Arron Banks. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2018. All rights reserved. Comments have not been enabled for this article. Latest on The Electoral Commission.
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And another link, this to the Liberal Democrat campaign
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/ ... ance-rules.

[Dominic]

Compare that fine to the Leave campaign's:

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/ ... estigation