Arron Banks, funder of unofficial Brexit campaign, is unhappy with decision to extend deadline by 48 hours

Arron Banks, the funder of the unofficial Brexit campaign Leave.EU, is considering whether to legally challenge to the government’s decision to extend the deadline for registering to vote in the EU referendum by 48 hours.

David Cameron promised to force through legislation to extend the deadline to midnight on Thursday after the government’s registration website was overwhelmed by a surge in applications in the the final hours before the initial deadline of midnight on Tuesday.

Banks, an insurance millionaire, revealed that his lawyers were examining the decision. In a statement he said: “We believe it is unconstitutional at best and have been advised that with legitimate cause we could challenge this extension.

“We are therefore considering all available legal options with our legal team, with a view to potentially launching a judicial review now and after the outcome of the referendum on 23 June.”

Vote Leave – the official Brexit campaign, which is not funded by Banks – also criticised the decision to extend registrations, but has not suggested it will sue the government.

The possible judicial review comes after 242,000 people applied to register to vote on Wednesday – a day after the initial deadline. At least as many are likely to apply on Thursday, after a record 525,000 applied on Tuesday.



It is thought that the remain campaign stands most to gain from late registrations as most of those applying are younger voters. Pollsters point out that young people are twice as likely to vote to remain in the EU, but under-25s are only half as likely to vote as over-65s.

The number who will actually be given the right to vote is likely to be significantly smaller than the number applying. Philip Cowley, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London, pointed out that many people apply to register to vote who are either already registered, or who turn out to be ineligible.

Philip Cowley (@philipjcowley) For the next two days, I will mostly be tweeting this...



From The British General Election of 2015. pic.twitter.com/elfVUU3Sru

The pro-Brexit Tory Bernard Jenkin, chair of the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee, questioned why the government was failing to put in the same effort to find misregistered EU citizens who had been issued polling cards.

“The government is having to rewrite the rules to clear up a shambles of their own making. Why are they not acting with the same vigour over weeding out misregistered EU nationals who have been sent polling cards and even postal ballots, but who are not eligible?” Jenkin said.

He warned that if the referendum result was close, the decision could be challenged by a judicial review because of the deadline’s extension.

A source within the remain campaign said: “Arron Banks is free to waste his money in any way he sees fit. But it’s extraordinary that the leave campaigns are so angered by the prospect of people wanting to take part in the democratic process.”

Following emergency discussions with the Electoral Commission and opposition parties, the government plans to table a statutory instrument in parliament to amend the referendum conduct regulations, reducing from five to three the number of working days before the poll that the electoral lists must be published.



This will extend the registration deadline to the end of Thursday, while preserving a separate five-day period for appeals against entries on the register.



The website’s collapse emerged at around 10.15pm on Tuesday when dozens of potential voters complained on Twitter that they could not access the website.

