The Electoral Commission, charged by parliament with ensuring the 2016 EU referendum was fair, unlawfully tilted the playing field in favour of leave. That’s the striking consequence of a high court decision from this morning.
Late last year, the Good Law Project (GLP) – of which I am director – sued the Electoral Commission in the high court on two grounds. First, it challenged the adequacy of the commission’s investigation into spending by Vote Leave. And second, it said that the EC had got the law wrong around donations.
Having initially said that both grounds were “without merit and not conceded in any respect”, the commission agreed to reopen its investigation into Vote Leave’s spending. It ultimately agreed with GLP that Vote Leave and Darren Grimes – founder of youth group BeLeave – had broken the law. Both have now been referred by the commission to the police.
This morning’s high court judgment deals with the second strand of GLP’s case – that the commission got the law wrong in taking the view donations could not count as spending.
