EU Referendum: Electoral Law

Debate between Martin Docherty-Hughes and Jon Trickett

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Jon Trickett (Hemsworth) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this debate. We have heard a number of important contributions, and it is difficult to disagree with any of them, given that nobody on the Government Benches actually bothered to make a speech, although they attempted to prick the arguments from time to time.

However we voted in the referendum and whatever our views now, the recent revelations in connection with the Brexit campaign raise serious questions about the functioning of our democracy and go to the heart of who we are as a country. First let me say, however, that we would not even be holding this debate were it not for the hard work, courage, diligence and honesty of journalists in the media.

Theirs is a profession that politicians rarely thank. The same applies to whistleblowers. However uncomfortable it may be for the powerful in our society, or for any of us, it is clearly essential to the functioning of a democracy that we protect the roles of both journalists and whistleblowers. It demeans our politics to attempt to destroy a whistleblower’s case not by addressing the matters that were being raised, but by insinuating that there was a malicious personal motive on the part of the whistleblower. It is especially sinister—indeed, it is shameful—when those insinuations emerge from Downing Street and when their source is defended by the Prime Minister personally. After all, the Government have a clear policy on whistleblowing. Their website states:

“As a whistleblower you’re protected by law—you shouldn’t be treated unfairly or lose your job because you ‘blow the whistle’.”

But Mr Sanni has been treated unfairly and in a way that is absolutely disgraceful.

Democracy depends on more than just journalists and whistleblowers. It needs transparency and a rules-based level playing field. If those attributes are missing, our democracy will be in severe danger and I believe that it may well be. The stakes have never been higher because the referendum itself was a major turning point in the country’s history. Moreover, the House will not forget that the Leave campaign was headed by two distinguished Members of this House, who arguably owe their membership of the British Cabinet to the role that they played in the Brexit campaign. To the victor belong the spoils, as they say.

It is too soon yet to draw any firm conclusions that Vote Leave broke the rules, but there are clearly reasons to worry. Before reciting some of the known facts, I remind the House that the law on referendums, which we passed, does not prevent donations from one campaign body to another, but it does forbid collusion between them, because otherwise there would not be a level playing field between the two sides in the referendum. If one campaign exceeds the spending cap by deliberately and surreptitiously spawning satellite or puppet operations, that crucial principle of equity between the two parties is lost.

Let me briefly list the facts that we do now know, some of which have already been mentioned. We know that Vote Leave raised more money than the statutory spending cap. We know that it donated surplus funds to other campaigning bodies, including a youth body called BeLeave. We know that the two campaigns shared the same building, and that there was a revolving door for staff between the two organisations. We know that they both used the same small Canada-based company, AIQ, whose purpose seems to have been to harvest data from social media in order to target Leave messaging to British voters. By a strange coincidence, the Leave.EU campaign—led by Messrs Farage and Banks, among others—used the very same small Canadian firm.

Incidentally, at least two other bodies, which have been mentioned briefly today, received donations from Vote Leave. One is Veterans for Britain and the other is the Democratic Unionist party, none of whose members are in the Chamber. Another remarkable coincidence is that both bodies reportedly used that same firm based in Canada, AIQ, whose premises are, I am told, above a shop.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Jon Trickett]

I will, very briefly.

[Martin Docherty-Hughes]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Veterans for Britain. Is he aware that that organisation consistently gives evidence to the Defence Committee and that—this is relevant to my earlier comments—there is now grave concern about the links between national security and this very debate?

[Jon Trickett]

I think that the hon. Gentleman’s point speaks for itself.

So far, so good. Those are the facts as I understand them. Until last week, there was evidence that the various Leave campaigns rubbed shoulders with each other, but no evidence that there was specific collusion. This is where the recent revelations by the whistleblower that have given rise to this debate change the nature of our understanding of what happened. Mr Sanni was right at the core of the BeLeave organisation from its inception; indeed, I understand he was the treasurer, although he says he never saw the money pass through the accounts. He had previously worked in the Vote Leave organisation and says he was directed by it to join BeLeave. He goes on to say that BeLeave was established by Vote Leave and the money it donated was in effect under the control not of BeLeave but of senior members of the Vote Leave staff, and he argues that the money allegedly donated by Vote Leave to BeLeave was actually directed by Vote Leave, to be spent on AIQ. If these allegations of collusion are true, they amount to a serious breach of the regulations and a de facto fusion of the two campaign groups, and one has to assume that under those circumstances there was an illegal spend by Vote Leave-BeLeave of about 10% of the total statutory cap.

That was illegal, yet a further allegation has been made. It is said that after the referendum Vote Leave staff destroyed or doctored the electronic data files they held in order to remove any reference to an interconnection between the two campaigns. It is therefore hard to conclude anything other than that this was a puppet campaign designed to avoid electoral law. If there was nothing to hide, why would they destroy or change the files?

Given the historic scale of the referendum and what it has presaged for our country, we must have a proper and urgent investigation, but the truth is that the House is not the proper place to carry it out, and let us be blunt about the reason why: it is because the Government are in this up to their neck. Two Cabinet Ministers fronted the organisation. They sit here week after week, the Bonnie and Clyde of Brexit—I will leave it to the House to decide who is Bonnie and who is Clyde. They had a pantomime swag bag allegedly full of £350 million a week for the NHS, which, as we know, turned out to be completely untrue. Meanwhile, the sheriff herself, in the shape of the Prime Minister, has publicly defended her own political secretary after his personalised attack on the whistleblower. They cannot represent themselves as honest brokers, so who will step up to carry out the investigation into these new revelations?

It must be the Electoral Commission and, if necessary, the police. At present, however, the Electoral Commission is under-resourced and lacks the necessary powers to carry out the task. After all, the situation last week with the Information Commissioner revealed how limited its powers and resources are in trying to get access to Cambridge Analytica files.

We on this side of the House demand that the Government recuse themselves from looking into these matters and commission a wholly independent investigation instead. The Electoral Commission should be given the extra powers and resources it needs to follow the evidence wherever it takes it. It should then report to this House and to the public directly, so that there is no suspicion of interference by interested parties in powerful places.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. We have seen the Prime Minister beholden to the extreme wing of her party, who are running wild and unchecked. If she wants to stand up for our democracy and show she has nothing to hide, she will surely now work with any investigation as a matter of urgency.