This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Electoral Commission believed it would “not be in the public interest” to investigate whether Vote Leave committed a second breach of referendum spending laws, according to the website OpenDemocracy.

Last week Vote Leave dropped its appeal against a £61,000 fine for breaking the EU referendum spending limit by donating hundreds of thousands of pounds to the pro-Brexit activist Darren Grimes. Grimes’s appeal against his own £20,000 fine continues.

Michael Gove and Boris Johnson, who played prominent roles in Vote Leave’s campaign, are now facing calls to reveal what they knew about the arrangement as they consider their bids to succeed Theresa May as Conservative party leader.

Boris Johnson and Michael Gove under fire on Vote Leave’s law-breaking Read more

Last year an investigation by the BBC’s Spotlight programme reported that online adverts placed on behalf of the DUP were booked by Vote Leave’s director in Northern Ireland.

The commission subsequently announced that it had considered the allegations but would not be launching an investigation because it did not have sufficient evidence.

At the time, it said: “After requesting further evidence from BBC Northern Ireland and being told that there was no ‘significant information’ other than what was in the programme, the commission considered whether other sources were available to evidence the allegations made in it.

“The commission has concluded it does not have grounds to open an investigation into the allegations made by BBC Northern Ireland Spotlight.”

That decision prompted the Good Law Project, a legal campaigning group run by the barrister Jolyon Maugham, to bring a judicial review asking a judge to examine the commission’s reasoning.

A document unearthed in the course of the case reveals that the commission also believed that even if it had found sufficient evidence of Vote Leave coordinating with the DUP, there would be no public interest in investigating the matter because Vote Leave had already been found to have coordinated with Grimes.

Maugham told OpenDemocracy the commission’s position was a “profound misstatement of the law”. “How many other times did the Electoral Commission fail to investigate because it didn’t think it was in the public interest for us to know?” Maugham said. “What else is out there that they wrongly closed their eyes to?”

A spokesperson for the commission said that because it believed the evidential threshold for an investigation had not been met, consideration of the public interest would not have been a factor in its decision-making.

“We are an evidence-based regulator and undertake our work to the highest standards,” the spokesperson said. “In August 2018, we concluded an assessment into allegations of joint spending by Vote Leave and the DUP.

“We had requested further evidence from BBC Northern Ireland that first aired the allegations. No further evidence was forthcoming and there was insufficient evidence to open an investigation. This decision was taken in line with our enforcement policy.”