The Vote Leave whistleblower Shahmir Sanni has sued the rightwing pressure group the TaxPayers’ Alliance for unfair dismissal, claiming he was fired for going public with concerns about illegal behaviour at the official Brexit campaign.

Sanni filed the lawsuit the day after the Electoral Commission published its findings that the Vote Leave campaign broke spending laws during the Brexit referendum.

He initially worked as a volunteer with Vote Leave, and was then asked to join the BeLeave youth campaign, which was at the centre of the commission’s investigation. It was used to channel nearly £700,000 of donations, while illegally coordinating spending with Vote Leave, the Electoral Commission found.

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The suit alleged that Sanni was fired “because of his belief that protecting the integrity and sanctity of British democracy from taint and corruption was paramount”, and his decision to go public with his concerns about Vote Leave.



The TaxPayers’ alliance said it “acted at all times in a fair and correct manner and we reject (and will be defending) the claims Mr Sanni has made.” The group declined further comment because a formal legal process was underway.

Sanni’s suit alleged that his employers fired him because they thought the details he made public could undermine Brexit, a policy goal for the group along with a “wider network of [eight other] right-wing entities that act in cohort.”

The suit also claimed that Sanni’s disclosures revealed potential wrongdoing by the Vote Leave campaign, whose former staff included people now employed either at the TaxPayers’ Alliance or within the wider network, including the website Brexit Central.

“The disclosures therefore pose risks both to those individuals and to the UK’s exit from the European Union,” the lawsuit said.

“The letter dismissing the claimant demonstrated that his protected disclosures [whistleblowing] and/or his protected belief [in British democracy] were the main or substantial reason for his dismissal.”

A letter from the TaxPayers’ Alliance quoted in the suit, said Sanni was being monitored for punctuality lapses, but suggested his public comments on Vote Leave funding had been the trigger for the firing.

“These existing issues have now been compounded and brought to a head by recent events concerning referendum donations (hereafter referred to as ‘the funding issue’) and the new campaign you are working on,” the letter said.

The letter claimed his whistleblowing activities had brought “negative attention ... and adverse publicity” for the TaxPayers’ Alliance.

Sanni’s suit claimed the disclosures did not concern his employer, and dovetailed with the Taxpayers’ Alliances’s stated commitment to “promote transparency and activism to disclose wrongdoing.”

It alleged that staff from the group of nine organisations, all based out of or with links to the same London address, had regular fortnightly meetings to share aims. It also claimed they discussed his whistle-blowing revelations, and his firing in retribution for them, at one of these gatherings.

They met “to agree a common line on political topics in the news ... and to coordinate the public messaging that the individual organisations can then issue,” the lawsuit claimed, for topics from Brexit to Labour party policy announcements.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Matthew Elliot founded the TaxPayers’ Alliance and headed up the Vote Leave campaign. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

“The express purpose of this is to provide a single set of agreed rightwing talking points on a given topic in the media ... getting more media coverage than a single message from a single organisation, thus securing more exposure to the public for the overall pre-agreed rightwing line to take.”

BrexitCentral said its staff had not sought to influence decisions about Sanni’s employment status with the TaxPayers’ Alliance. “Nor have [the editor], Jonathan Isaby, or [the editor at large], Matthew Elliott, participated in any discussion of ‘protected disclosures and/or protected belief’ at any meeting,” Isaby said in an emailed response to questions.

Isaby and Elliot were not aware of any fortnightly meeting of the kind described in the lawsuit, and BrexitCentral was not part of a composite “lobbying group pursuing the same political agenda”, he added.

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Elliot, the founder and former chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, was also head of the Vote Leave campaign group. After the Electoral Commission’s report was released on Tuesday he tweeted: “They’ve ignored VL’s [Vote Leave] detailed evidence, so it’s riddled with errors & conclusions completely wrong. We accepted their invitation for an interview in early March. Senior staff also volunteered to be interviewed. They haven’t followed due process.”

Sanni told the Guardian that the result of the Electoral Commission investigation had vindicated his decision to go public with his concerns about the Vote Leave campaign, but he was still struggling with the personal and financial fallout from coming forward.



“The Electoral Commission has now concluded that Vote Leave broke electoral law, just as I said. Vote Leave obstructed the investigation and lied about it but I was sacked and outed by government officials for helping the Electoral Commission and the public,” he said.

“My aim in bringing this claim is to seek justice for the way in which British democracy has been damaged by these people. I am reliant on donations to meet the costs of doing this. It is an immense and daunting task but I will take it as far as it needs to be taken.”