A complaint that voters were misled by the Vote Leave and Leave.EU campaigns in contravention of electoral law is reportedly being considered by the director of public prosecutions.
According to The Guardian, an independent group, fronted by Professor Bob Watt, an electoral law expert from the University of Buckingham, has submitted the complaint, citing ‘undue influence’ on the referendum campaign. As pointed out by the same report, ‘undue influence’ is deemed a corrupt practice under electoral law.
A Crown Prosecution Service spokesperson said: “We can confirm that this letter has been received and we are currently considering its content.”
Photo: Jack Taylor / Getty Images
Watt and colleagues’ complaint supposedly centres on “instances where the leave campaigns continued to make assertions of fact that were knowingly misleading”. This is said to include the Vote Leave claim that the EU cost the UK £350m a week, a claim that Watt says did not match up to evidence from the Office for National Statistics.
Watt also cited the Vote Leave posters that claimed that ‘Turkey is joining the EU’, as well as the statement that ‘The UK has no border controls whilst in the EU’.
“Our primary aim in seeking prosecution is to try to restore some integrity to our democratic processes,” Watt said.
“None of us is willing to allow the UK to be dragged down to some kind of populist ‘who can lie and deceive the most?’ race to the bottom, such as we witnessed earlier this year.”
If a case was brought successfully, this would not have any impact on the result of the referendum or the UK’s departure from the EU. It could however result in criminal punishment for anyone held responsible by the courts for making false statements.
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