EU Referendum: Electoral Law

Henry Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

The hon. Gentleman encourages me to speculate on a matter to which it is difficult to respond. If these allegations, which are unproven, are true and £625,000 was spent illegally in a very focused campaign and, by definition, was targeted on a very small number of people, it is very hard to say what the effect might have been. That is partly what I hope any inquiries might clarify.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

Would the right hon. Gentleman not acknowledge that the remain campaign spent about one third more on the EU referendum and indeed that the Government spent more than £9 million of taxpayers’ money sending a leaflet to every house in the UK promoting our remaining? Could that not be seen as biased in favour of that campaign?

[Tom Brake]

Many Members on the Opposition Benches, and possibly some on the Government Benches, will have seen a comprehensive dossier of ways in which Vote Leave and BeLeave allegedly broke the law. If the hon. Gentleman wants to bring to the House, or present to the Electoral Commission and the police, a similar dossier of allegations against Britain Stronger in Europe, of course he should do that, and Members on both sides of the House would welcome it, but the fact is that all we have is the dossier that the Electoral Commission and the police are now considering in relation to Vote Leave’s and BeLeave’s activities. He should not, then, try to muddy the waters in the way I am afraid he is seeking to do.