The official Vote Leave campaign has been fined £61,000 ($80,935) and was reported to the police by the Electoral Commission for breaching electoral law rules and regulations.
A report, published by the watchdog on Tuesday, also found “significant evidence” of coordination between Vote Leave and another junior campaign group, BeLeave, as both pro-Brexit organizations had a common spending plan.
“The Electoral Commission has found significant evidence of undeclared joint working between the lead leave campaigner, Vote Leave, and the campaign group BeLeave,” the report said.
The investigation also found that David Halsall, the head of Vote Leave, and Darren Grimes, the head of BeLeave, had breached spending regulations by spending more money during the referendum than they had originally claimed.
“The Commission is satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that all Mr Grimes’ and BeLeave’s spending on referendum campaigning was incurred under a common plan with Vote Leave,” the report said.
“Vote Leave should have made a declaration of the amounts of joint spending in its referendum spending return. As the declarations were not made, Mr Halsall failed, without reasonable excuse, to deliver a complete campaign spending return, committing an offence,” the report added.
The investigation also found that Vote Leave exceeded its £7 million ($9.2 million) spending limit by £449,079 (about $595,080) and BeLeave, which was never registered to the Commission as a campaigner in the referendum, had exceeded its £10,000 (about $13,250) limit by spending over £675,000 (about $895,000).
As such, both organisations and their heads have committed offences under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act (PPERA). Halsall of Vote Leave and Grimes of BeLeave have been reported to the police.
Vote Leave headed the official leave campaign during the 2016 EU referendum and was fronted by former foreign secretary Boris Johnson and cabinet minister Michael Gove.
The U.K. is expected to leave the EU in March 2019.
