Mr Grimes’ reported donations and spending

Mr Grimes reported a series of donations and spending that related to Aggregate IQ.

In chronological order, these were:

a donation from Vote Leave and a payment to Aggregate IQ, both of £400,000, on 14 June 2016

a donation from Mr Anthony Clake and a payment to Aggregate IQ, both of £50,000, on 17 June 2016

a donation from Vote Leave and a payment to Aggregate IQ, both of £40,000, on 20 June 2016

a donation from Vote Leave and a payment to Aggregate IQ, both of £185,315.18, on 21 June 2016

Mr Grimes said that he incurred the spending with Aggregate IQ for services provided to BeLeave. He had sent in invoices from Aggregate IQ with his return that listed activity to be carried out for BeLeave.

Mr Grimes said that he incurred this spending after he was offered donations by Vote Leave in June 2016. He asked Vote Leave to pay the donations direct to Aggregate IQ because he did not yet have a working bank account for BeLeave.

Mr Grimes gave the same explanation for the donation from Mr Clake being paid to Aggregate IQ.

Vote Leave told us that it had surplus funds towards the end of the referendum campaign. It took the decision to donate these to BeLeave. It said that Vote Leave had no input into how BeLeave decided to use the funds.

The creation of BeLeave

While accounts differ, we understand that from some point during January 2016, Mr Grimes started volunteering in Vote Leave’s ‘Outreach Team’.

This team ran a campaign strategy adopted by Vote Leave to support a range of groups appealing to different demographics.

Prior to May 2016, Mr Grimes was using the name BeLeave to campaign online for the UK to exit the EU.

From March 2016, Mr Sanni also did some work in the name of BeLeave, such as helping develop proposals for a prospective donor.

There is no evidence that a distinct entity or body called BeLeave existed at that time. For example, it had no constitution that defined its purpose, nothing saying who was involved or what they did, and nothing saying how it worked.

It is not clear how much referendum campaigning Mr Grimes did in the name of BeLeave at this point. He reported campaign spending totalling £21.51 between 9 February and 13 June 2016.

Vote Leave gave infrastructure support and advice to Mr Grimes to build his BeLeave brand. For example, Vote Leave’s Head of Outreach directed a Vote Leave contractor to build the BeLeave website. The contractor reported to the Head of Outreach on the completion of the work.

Mr Grimes got advice from Vote Leave on website content. He also got practical help with the content, including using Vote Leave staff and facilities to film videos and take photos. He told Vote Leave when he registered with the Commission as an individual campaigner.

Vote Leave’s Head of Outreach, in response, said that she ‘owed’ him a donor.

In May 2016 Vote Leave’s Legal Director drew up a constitution for BeLeave. According to Mr Grimes, this was because he asked Vote Leave’s Head of Outreach about opening a bank account for BeLeave so that it could receive funds from prospective donors.

She advised him to get a constitution, and according to Mr Grimes Vote Leave gave him a blank template he could use. Vote Leave also gave us this explanation.

These accounts are not consistent with the email chain between Mr Grimes and Vote Leave, however. This shows Vote Leave providing him with a complete draft, and advising on the purpose and dissolution clauses to allow BeLeave to continue its activities after the referendum.

It is clear from the evidence that the catalyst for the creation of the constitution was the fact that Vote Leave had found a potential donor for BeLeave.

Discussions with the donor took place, but in the event no donation was made.

In order to meet the legal definition of an unincorporated association, BeLeave had to be an association “of two or more persons… which carries on business or other activities wholly or mainly in the UK and whose main office is there” (section 45(2)(h) PPERA).

By the act of drafting a constitution, Vote Leave facilitated the creation of BeLeave as an unincorporated association. By agreeing to that constitution, BeLeave’s Board members created an unincorporated association. That association, BeLeave, came into existence on or around 18 May 2016.

Donations to BeLeave

BeLeave’s only donors were Vote Leave and Mr Anthony Clake. All its donations, barring £1,000 given to BeLeave for expenses, were paid to Aggregate IQ.

We got copies of email exchanges between Mr Dominic Cummings, acting on behalf of Vote Leave, and Mr Clake. These set out how Mr Clake’s donation to BeLeave came about. A summary is given below.

On 11 June 2016 Mr Cummings wrote to Mr Clake saying that Vote Leave had all the money it could spend, and suggesting the following: “However, there is another organisation that could spend your money. Would you be willing to send the 100k to some social media ninjas who could usefully spend it on behalf of this organisation? I am very confident it would be well spent in the final crucial 5 days. Obviously it would be entirely legal. (sic)” Mr Cummings explained to us that the ‘ninjas’ were Aggregate IQ

Mr Clake asked about this organisation. Mr Cummings replied as follows: “the social media ninjas are based in canada – they are extremely good. You would send your money directly to them. the organisation that would legally register the donation is a permitted participant called BeLeave, a “young people’s organisation”. happy to talk it through on the phone though in principle nothing is required from you but to wire money to a bank account if you’re happy to take my word for it. (sic)”

On 15 June 2016 Mr Clake wrote to Mr Cummings saying that he would split a donation between Vote Leave and BeLeave. Mr Cummings replied the same day to say “we are also giving money to them – you can just send us the full amount and we’ll add yours onto what we are giving them and save you the admin.” Mr Clake responded saying that he would like to give £50,000 to each campaigner (Vote Leave and BeLeave).

Later on 15 June 2016, Mr Cummings asked Vote Leave’s Operations Director to send Mr Clake the bank details for both Vote Leave and BeLeave. The Operations Director sent Mr Clake these details. Shortly afterwards she sent Mr Clake contact details for BeLeave. Mr Clake then emailed Mr Grimes to offer a donation to BeLeave. He specified that this donation would made “via the AIQ account.”

We have seen no evidence that BeLeave was at all involved in obtaining this donation or had any control over it or what it would be used for.

Instead, by 11 June 2016 the Vote Leave officials dealing with donations to other campaigners knew that BeLeave would commission services from Aggregate IQ. They knew that these would be used in the final five days of the campaign.

Vote Leave actively encouraged a donor to fund that work and offered to act as an agent for that donation. It was Vote Leave that provided the donor with BeLeave’s account details and afterwards it gave the donor BeLeave’s contact details.

By the time the donor approached BeLeave, the recipient of his donation, Vote Leave had told him how the money would be used.

We also got copies of various internal emails from Vote Leave and emails with Mr Grimes about the donations from Vote Leave. A summary is below.

On 13 June 2016 Mr Grimes emailed Vote Leave’s Operations Director following a discussion they had about a donation. He thanked Vote Leave for considering a donation, and said: “We’d be very interested in working with data specialists like those at Aggregate IQ.” He went on to say that he wanted to work with Aggregate IQ

Vote Leave’s Operations Director replied to Mr Grimes later on 13 June 2016 saying that she would need to speak to the Finance Committee and then would ask Mr Grimes to “confirm that you are happy to transfer the money to Aggregate IQ.”

On 14 June 2016 Vote Leave’s Operations Director emailed Mr Grimes to offer a donation of £400,000. Mr Grimes replied asking for the funds to be transferred to Aggregate IQ

On 17 June 2016 Vote Leave’s Operations Director emailed Mr Grimes to offer “a further donation to BeLeave.” The next day Mr Grimes replied, asking for the funds to be “sent directly to AIQ”

On 21 June 2016 Vote Leave’s Operations Director emailed Mr Grimes to ask if he could make use of a £181,000 donation. He replied shortly afterwards asking for £180,000 to go to AIQ and £1,000 to BeLeave to cover travel expenses

Vote Leave gave us a minute of a Finance Committee meeting held on 14 June 2016. The minute shows that Vote Leave did anticipate a surplus of funds and it decided that these would be given away as donations.

The minute agreed the £400,000 donation to BeLeave, and authorised further donations at the discretion of “the executive with supervision”.

Vote Leave also gave us a minute of a Responsible Person Meeting on 21 June 2016. These show Mr Halsall, Vote Leave’s responsible person, authorising a donation of up to £440,000 to BeLeave, again after talk about surplus funds.

BeLeave’s activities

Before May 2016, when Mr Grimes was using the BeLeave name in campaign material, Vote Leave had a significant influence over his activities.

This is clear from Vote Leave’s input of advice and resources to the BeLeave website. It is also clear from Vote Leave’s role in trying to find donors for BeLeave activity.

Mr Grimes and Vote Leave told us that BeLeave commissioned its own material from Aggregate IQ.

Evidence from June 2016 does show that Mr Grimes and others from BeLeave had significant input into the look and design of the BeLeave adverts produced by Aggregate IQ. However, Vote Leave messaging was still influential in their strategy and design. For example:

On 15 June 2016 Mr Grimes told other BeLeave Board members and Aggregate IQ that BeLeave’s ads needed to be: “an effective way of pushing our more liberal and progressive message to an audience which is perhaps not as receptive to Vote Leave’s messaging.”

On 17 June 2016 Mr Grimes told other BeLeave Board members: “So as soon as we can go live. Advertising should be back on tomorrow and normal operating as of Sunday. I’d like to make sure we have loads of scheduled tweets and Facebook status. Post all of those blogs including Shahmirs, use favstar to check out and repost our best performing tweets. Copy and paste lines from Vote Leave’s briefing room in a BeLeave voice”

BeLeave’s ability to procure services from Aggregate IQ only resulted from the actions of Vote Leave, in providing those donations and arranging a separate donor for BeLeave.

While BeLeave may have contributed its own design style and input, the services provided by Aggregate IQ to BeLeave used Vote Leave messaging, at the behest of BeLeave’s campaign director.

It also appears to have had the benefit of Vote Leave data and/or data it obtained via online resources set up and provided to it by Vote Leave to target and distribute its campaign material. This is shown by evidence from Facebook that Aggregate IQ used identical target lists for Vote Leave and BeLeave ads, although the BeLeave ads were not run.

Joint spending by Vote Leave and BeLeave

Vote Leave and BeLeave told us that the BeLeave AIQ payments were donations, and Vote Leave had no influence over how BeLeave used them. We are satisfied that many parts of this explanation are not consistent with the evidence.

Mr Grimes said that BeLeave was his initiative from the outset. The evidence shows that BeLeave as an unincorporated association was created when Vote Leave advised Mr Grimes on getting a constitution in place, and wrote that constitution for him.

This happened because it was a necessary precursor to Vote Leave obtaining funding for the BeLeave campaign.

Mr Grimes also said he ran his own campaign using his own facilities. The evidence shows that his BeLeave campaign website was set up by Vote Leave, its content was created by Vote Leave, he consulted Vote Leave on campaigning and Vote Leave actively sought funding for his work.

Mr Grimes said that he chose to spend the donations from Vote Leave and Mr Clake on Aggregate IQ. But Vote Leave officials channelled funds to Aggregate IQ in the name of BeLeave, without Mr Grimes being involved.

Vote Leave said that its work with BeLeave was consistent with the duty on it as a lead campaigner to represent and engage with other ‘leave’ campaigners. The fact that Vote Leave and BeLeave were incurring spending as part of a common plan is consistent with that duty.

However, Vote Leave and BeLeave were also under a legal obligation to report the spending accurately.

The £675,315.18 reported by Mr Grimes as BeLeave spending with Aggregate IQ was incurred in pursuance of a common plan with Vote Leave.

That common plan included spending incurred by Vote Leave on the infrastructure and other support given to Mr Grimes when he was using the BeLeave name, and to BeLeave itself.

Further, the remaining amount of campaign spending reported by Mr Grimes (£700.19) was also incurred under the same common plan.

The entire amount - £676,015.37 – should have been treated as incurred by Vote Leave and a declaration of the amounts should have been included on Vote Leave’s referendum spending return.