EU Referendum: Conduct

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

My Lords, the Prime Minister has made her position quite clear on a second referendum: she does not want one. The Electoral Commission is investigating whether Mr Banks was the true source of the loans reported by a referendum campaign in his name and whether any individual facilitated a transaction with a non-qualifying person. But it is important to keep this in perspective. The Atlantic Council and the Oxford Research Institute, both of which have researched this, found that the impact of the Russians on the referendum was at best marginal. One estimate was 0.3% of tweets. I was as disappointed as the noble Lord with the outcome of the referendum, but unlike him I do not believe that it was lost because of what I might call the Zinoviev Twitter.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, this is the Act of Parliament that set out the conditions under which the referendum was fought. This is not a minor matter of rules or regulations; this is the law of the land. Can the noble Lord confirm that the Electoral Commission passed files detailing what had happened in terms of lawbreaking by the leavers during the campaign to the Metropolitan Police several months ago? Can he reassure the House that the police will never halt or delay an investigation because it is claimed that there are political sensitivities?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I think it is a malign slur on the police to imply that they would defer to political pressure in that way. It is indeed the case that the responsible person for Vote Leave has been referred to the police, as has Mr Grimes, in relation to false declarations of campaign spending. A number of pro-remain organisations were also fined by the EC for breaking referendum law, including the Liberal Democrats.