Solicitors acting on behalf of the claimants in the case of Wilson & Others vs. The Prime Minister, also known as the UK in EU Challenge, have written again to Theresa May’s lawyers asking that she rethink her position following the Electoral Commission’s decision to refer Leave.EU donor Arron Banks to the National Crime Agency.
The Prime Minister has so far refused to act on the Challenge’s claims that illegal campaign spending during the course of the Referendum means the result cannot now be considered the ‘will of the people’ and therefore the Brexit process should be halted.
The National Crime Agency is expected to look into the source of Banks’s £8m donation to the Leave.EU campaign, the largest in UK political history.
On Tuesday an Information Commissioner’s Office report confirmed that fines of up to £135k will be levied at the pro-Brexit Leave.EU campaign, as well as an insurance company owned by Banks, after both were proven to have breached data laws.
Both have brought into sharp focus questions over whether Mrs May blocked an investigation into the Leave.EU campaign donor during her time as Home Secretary and the failure of the Metropolitan Police to proceed with their investigation of Vote Leave’s potential criminal activity, citing ‘political sensitivities’.
The letter to the Prime Minister picks up on some of the legal arguments that will be put forward at the oral hearing for the UK in EU Challenge, scheduled for Friday 7 December at the Royal Courts of Justice.
The government is expected to make submissions at the hearing although not required to do so and will be represented by First Treasury Counsel, Sir James Eadie QC, who appeared for the government in the 2016/17 Gina Miller Article 50 case.
The claimants are being led by Susan Wilson, Chair of Bremain in Spain, who said: “Since the Electoral Commission found Vote Leave guilty of breaking electoral law, we have taken steps to question the impact of those actions and to shed light on the issues. Now, almost daily, we have further revelations of wrong-doing. We have continued to question the government yet it fails to respond. We, and the country, deserve some answers.
“We have heard all too frequently that Brexit is the ‘will of the people’. Based on the evidence now available, it cannot be said with any degree of certainty that the result would stand had the law not been broken. May can no longer be sure what the ‘will of the people’ was in June 2016, or indeed, what it is today.”
A copy of the letter can be viewed here:
https://www.ukineuchallenge.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/2...
Further documents can be accessed via the Claimants’ CrowdJustice page:
https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/ukineuchallenge/
ENDS
For more information, or interviews with the claimants and Croft Solicitors, please contact Sarah Hall on 07702 162 704 / sarah@sarahhallconsulting.co.uk