Why did the BBC report Vote Leave's spin on alleged law-breaking without seeing the official findings first?

Vote Leave broke electoral law during the EU referendum, according to BBC reports on an upcoming Electoral Commission report. 

Except the Beeb appear to have got the report from Vote Leave – meaning the story leads on former chief Matthew Elliot’s rebuttal, and not, bizarrely, the Electoral Commission who actually wrote the report.

What the BBC do have is the 500-page ‘dossier’ of Vote Leave, in response to the EC’s findings. And a full interview with Matthew Elliot (who also founded the right-wing Taxpayers’ Alliance).

The EC say the official Leave camp made an inaccurate return of campaign expenditure, is missing invoices and receipts, failed to comply with a statutory notice, exceeded its spending limit – although there could be more.

The implications could be enormous. As Chuka Umunna notes, “In an EU referendum where there was a 4% victory for Vote Leave, they overspent by 10%”.

But it’s the way the story came about that is concerning. As the Electoral Commission point out, Vote Leave already had been able to respond to the Electoral Commission findings, with the response period closing yesterday. Instead, they bypassed the usual proces and went public with the EC’s initial findings.

“The unusual step taken by Vote Leave in sharing its views on the Electoral Commission’s initial findings does not affect the process set out in law,” the Commission say.

Leading Parliamentarians are not happy with the dirty tricks being played out.

Tory MP Damian Collins, the chair of Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee, is enraged – given that Vote Leave’s Campaign Director refused to attend Parliament due to the ongoing investigations by the Electoral Commission. Clearly the group are not against frustrating the due process of the Commission.

Clearly no issues now with Vote Leave discussing the Electoral Commission investigation before its report is published. This further undermines Dominic Cummings excuses for not appearing before @CommonsCMS to answer questions on data & campaign management https://t.co/HDTt5tfNt5

— Damian Collins (@DamianCollins) July 4, 2018

The Guardian‘s Carole Cadwalladr, who has been investigating the Leave campaign, has slated the BBC for running Vote Leave’s spin before seeing the official Commission report:

This is the official Vote Leave campaign, funded with taxpayers’ money & it leaked this report to select outlets. It briefed the Sun yesterday but wouldn’t answer the Guardian’s emails…

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) July 4, 2018

Whistleblower Chris Wylie was also scathing:

Brexit is now a crime scene. Vote Leave cheated and they are trying to use BBC on the night of the football match to bury the fact that they had to commit crimes in order to ‘win’ the referendum. They hope no one notices that Brexit was won with fraud. https://t.co/0zkcldGd3U

— Christopher Wylie 🏳️‍🌈 (@chrisinsilico) July 4, 2018

This isn’t the only investigation going on into the official Leave camp.

As the site the ‘Bad Boys of Brexit‘ notes, “In November 2017, the Electoral Commission reopened its investigation into Vote Leave’s payments of £625,000 to 23-year-old fashion student Darren Grimes, who had gone on to spend large sums with social media marketing firm Aggregate IQ (closely linked to Cambridge Analytica). Concerns had been raised that this donation may have been used to breach Vote Leave’s limit on referendum spending.”

Granted, the BBC story is quite the scoop. But it’s hard not to see the Corporation as being played here by a very media-savvy operation – it’s no coincidence that Vote Leave briefed the Sun but not the Guardian.

Josiah Mortimer is Editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter.

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