The Electoral Commission has found that two Remain campaigns that were set up less than a month before the referendum campaign worked together, breaking electoral law.

“We found that the ‘5 seconds campaign’ was a joint campaign run by WUAV and DDB UK Limited. Spending on the campaign was ‘joint’ or ‘common plan’ spending.”

Wake Up And Vote (WUAV) and DDB were just two of five campaigns that were all set up less than a month before the referendum, sharing big donors, and in total funnelling more than a million pounds into the Remain cause. The others seem to have avoided proper scrutiny…

WUAV and DDB created unbranded videos that was conveniently shared by the official Britain Stronger in Europe campaign, as if it was their content. DDB has been fined just £1,800 for failing to declare joint spending with Wake Up And Vote. This follows a £1,000 fine handed to DDB in March 2018 for other inaccuracies in its spending return…

Last year Guido reported (above) how Remainers shared data, suppliers and campaign materials, coordinated spending, funnelled £1 million to new campaigns set up in the month before the vote, and potentially spent double the legal limit. Guido even produced a special report into the matter…

Louise Edwards, the Commission’s Director of Regulation tells Guido, “Both Wake Up and Vote and DDB UK Limited had an important legal duty to accurately declare joint spending in their referendum spending returns. Both failed to do so, meaning that voters, looking at the reported spending, had no way of knowing that WUAV and DDB UK Limited had worked together on a campaign, or of how much either campaigner spent in total.” In short, Remainers cynically broke the law…

It has taken well over a year for the Electoral Commsion to act on WUAV and DDB. In June 2018 Priti Patel handed the Commission a dossier full of evidence. Initially the Electoral Commission refused to investigate the clearly dodgy practices, leading to outrage from Leavers at the clear bias of the organisation. Despite the work being done for them, the evident law breaking was only fined today, more than three years after the referendum. This is only a partial victory for Guido, as Priti’s dossier shows, the Electoral Commission scratched the surface…