Arron Banks funded the nasty, xenophobic campaign fronted by Nigel Farage in 2016. His alleged law-breaking is so big that it could have flipped the referendum result.

The Electoral Commission last week referred the Leave.EU boss to the National Crime Agency (NCA), the UK’s equivalent of the FBI, for “multiple criminal offences”. It said it had “reasonable grounds” to suspect that Banks was not the true source of the £8 million he pumped into the leave campaign and that the money came from an impermissible source.

Today the Information Commissioner says it is minded to fine Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance, Banks’ insurance company, £135,000 for breaching privacy regulations. It is also investigating allegations that Eldon shared customer data obtained for insurance purposes with Leave.EU.

£8 million is not a small amount of money. Without it, the various organisations Banks put money into – including Grassroots Out as well as Leave.EU – might have been unable to operate their vicious campaign on the scale that they did. And without such noisy, racist interventions, the result could have been different.

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Some think the evidence unearthed by the two regulators is a reason to pause Brexit until the investigations have completed their course. They have a point, but it is not a practical option.

Others think the evidence is a reason to declare the 2016 referendum not valid – or to run it again. Again, this is not a practical option. What’s more, the country needs to look forward and make the best decision given where we are now.

The case for a People’s Vote at the end of the Brexit talks is not that the 2016 referendum was not valid. It is rather that new facts have emerged which voters could not have known two and a half years ago. The most important concern the miserable half-baked deal that the prime minister is concocting.

However, this does not mean the investigations into Banks are irrelevant. Brits like fair play. So the probes may help to persuade more MPs and voters of the merits of a People’s Vote by giving them permission to look at the choice we now face with an open mind.

Banks denied any wrongdoing after the Electoral Commission referred him to the NCA and said he welcomed the investigation.

Edited by Bill Emmott