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A secretive call centre operating on behalf the Conservative Party during he election campaign may have been illegal, it was claimed tonight.

An investigation into the call centre by Channel 4 News , claimed the cold-call centre broke data protection and election law.

Call centre workers at the market research firm in Neath, South Wales, read from a script as they made thousands of calls to voters in marginal seats in the weeks leading up to the election.

But the undercover probe found the script appeared to canvass for support - which would be regulated under electoral law - rather than conducting market research - which would not.

(Image: Leon Neal)

Calls were also allegedly made on the day of the election to promote individual candidates - which could be in breach of electoral law.

It's against the law to pay someone to canvass for a particular candidate.

According to Channel 4, callers were told to identify themselves as calling “on behalf of Theresa May and the Conservative Party.”

Undecided voters were fed key Conservative campaign messages, including references to the Brexit negotiations and warnings about a hung parliament.

One version of the script read: ‘It was reported in the Daily Mirror in September last year that Jeremy Corbyn is not concerned about the numbers of people coming to live in the UK and it was reported on Sky News this year that Theresa May has restated her pledge to reduce net Migration.

‘Just thinking about these reports in the media and the reports that you live in a marginal constituency that may determine who is prime minister… Does that make you more likely to back Theresa May or more likely to vote for Jeremy Corbyn?’

The investigation also claims staff were told to say they were calling from ‘Axe Research’ - a company which does not exist.

Data Protection law says companies must reveal who they are and how the data will be used.

The investigation also claimed a huge number of calls were made to numbers registered on the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). Marketers are banned from calling TPS registered numbers, but there are exceptions for legitimate market research."

Channel 4 claims Tory slogans - including Theresa May's claim that the Tories losing just six seats would put Jeremy Corbyn in Number 10 - were being added to the script within hours of them being used on the campaign trail.

Scripts were allegedly supplied directly to the firm by the Conservative Party.

The Conservative Party has said it did not break the law.

A Tory spokesman said: “Political parties of all colours pay for market research and direct marketing calls.

"All the scripts supplied by the party for these calls are compliant with data protection and information law.”

(Image: Getty)

Sascha Lopez, a former Tory council candidate who runs Blue Telecoms, the company who runs the call centre, said: “In relation to the Conservative party project, I am unable to comment on the content of the scripts or calls to TPS [Telephone Preference Service] numbers, as the scripts and lists of who to call and when to call were given to us by Conservative campaign HQ in London and were not influenced by my team.

“However I can advise we were engaged to conduct market research and polling for the Conservative party, and at no time were we engaged to conduct any form of marketing or canvassing by the party or its candidates.”

He told Channel 4 Blue Telecoms and Axe Research were “trading styles” of the Lopez Group.