In addition to the £625,000 Grimes received from Vote Leave, Grimes also received a donation of £50,000 in kind during the final 10 days of the referendum from an individual called Anthony Clarke, who had previously given money to Vote Leave.

Grimes has previously said Clarke approached him independently of Vote Leave and that all donations were recorded in accordance with the rules.

Because the donations were made in the final fortnight of the campaign, the figures were not published until after the result was known.



A similar arrangement took place with Veterans for Britain, which spent £100,000 of Vote Leave's money with AggregateIQ on 22 June – the day before the EU referendum vote.

AggregateIQ's Zack Massingham told BuzzFeed News he regularly flew from British Columbia to London to work on Brexit-related projects but insisted he worked "quite separately" on the parallel campaigns run.



"AggregateIQ provides election-related technology and online advertising services for political organizations and candidates across the political spectrum and all around the world," he said. "We worked under contract as a vendor for Vote Leave and BeLeave [the name of Grimes' campaign] during the EU referendum and we are glad that they were happy with the work we did for them. As a vendor it would be inappropriate to comment on the details of the work we do for specific clients."

He did not clarify when his company came to be employed by Grimes and whether he started work for Grimes before Vote Leave gave the student £625,000.

Earlier this month, at a meeting of parliament's public administration and constitutional affairs committee, Labour MP Paul Flynn asked Vote Leave finance director Antonia Flockton whether it was "an entirely innocent act" that Vote Leave gave £625,000 to Grimes.



"When it became obvious that we were in surplus funding, we chose to donate to other campaigns," she said in response. "There is a question as to whether they were independent campaigns acting independently. They were. Therefore, there is no issue in relation to our expenditure.

"The rules, to our minds, are quite clear. We did it consciously and we did it on condition that those donations were reported. We were repeatedly clear about that, so we were clear that it should be transparent. I do not see any issue."

A spokesperson for the Electoral Commission said it had investigated Grimes following the original BuzzFeed News story and had not found any evidence of the law being broken, which would attract a potential maximum fine of £20,000.

"The Commission considered and undertook enquiries of Vote Leave and Mr Grimes to determine whether there was a common plan between Darren Grimes and Vote Leave," the spokesperson said. "We concluded our enquiries on 4 October 2016 and found no evidence that Darren Grimes and Vote Leave worked together in a way that broke the law.

"As such, we concluded that there was no need to open a full investigation into the matter and no further action was taken relating to this matter.

"Vote Leave have until 23 December to submit their spending return, and we will flag any issues, if any, in our press release we issue in the New Year."

Grimes said: "BeLeave used AggregateIQ services to help advertise to supporters online during the referendum. This has all been declared as required by the Electoral Commission."