Tim Shipman and Jon Ungoed-Thomas
March 25 2018, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
A whistleblower claimed last night that the EU referendum result “wasn’t legitimate” because the “leave” campaign “cheated” by funnelling cash to a satellite group in a way that “wasn’t legal”.
Shahmir Sanni accused Stephen Parkinson of Vote Leave — now Theresa May’s political secretary — of engineering a £625,000 donation to BeLeave, the Brexit group for which he worked, then dictating that the money was spent on digital advertising.
In an interview with Channel 4 News, Sanni claimed the donation was designed to circumvent the limits on campaign spending: “I know that Vote Leave cheated . . . I know that people have been lied to and that the referendum wasn’t legitimate.”
Sanni and two others sent a 46-page dossier to the Electoral Commission on Thursday with three ring binders of supporting evidence.
One of the others was Christopher Wylie, who last week exposed details of how the British firm Cambridge Analytica used data improperly obtained from Facebook to help Donald Trump get elected as the US president.
Its offices were raided on Friday by the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is investigating what role the company played in Brexit.
Vote Leave was entitled to spend only £7m but separate campaign groups could spend up to £700,000 as long as they were independent. Sanni says he and BeLeave’s founder, Darren Grimes, reported to Parkinson. “There was no time where anything BeLeave did didn’t go through Stephen,” Sanni said.
He claimed Parkinson told Grimes to spend the £625,000 on the services of Aggregate IQ (AIQ), a Canadian firm making internet adverts for Vote Leave. Asked if they could have refused, Sanni said: “We didn’t ever feel like we had that level of control . . . In terms of . . . money, we never had a say over that.”
He added: “In effect they used BeLeave to overspend and not just by a small amount . . . Almost two-thirds of a million pounds makes all the difference and it wasn’t legal . . . They say that it wasn’t co-ordinated, but it was. The idea that . . . the campaign was legitimate is false.”
The government angered leavers during the campaign by spending £9m on leaflets setting out the case for remain.
The latest row has been fuelled by revelations of a sexual relationship. On Friday Parkinson issued a statement saying he had been in a relationship with Sanni for 18 months and had given him advice only in their capacity as lovers. Sanni’s lawyers accused Parkinson of outing him.
Last night Parkinson said he was “saddened” by Sanni’s “untrue” claims, pointing out that it was impossible to defend himself “without revealing my relationship with Shahmir”. He added: “I firmly deny the allegations. I had no responsibility for digital campaigning or donations on the Vote Leave campaign.”
Grimes also denies Sanni’s claims. Vote Leave released papers showing that Sanni has changed his story since he was interviewed in December 2016 by Daniel Hodson, Vote Leave’s head of compliance. Hodson’s notes show that Sanni told him Grimes met AIQ at a “press conference at Vote Leave HQ and contacted them afterwards off his own bat” rather than because Parkinson had told him to.
The notes say: “Darren suggested that AIQ be used because of their ‘fantastic’ work for Ted Cruz in the US presidential primary campaign. It was a unilateral decision.”
Dominic Cummings, campaign director of Vote Leave, said: “Shahmir is unquestionably telling lies about BeLeave. Either he was lying . . . in 2016 . . . or he is lying now.” He said Wylie had sought to sell Vote Leave the same data analytics that he now condemns Cambridge Analytica for using — an offer that Vote Leave had rejected.
A Vote Leave spokesman pointed out that it had been advised by the Electoral Commission that the donation to BeLeave was permissible: “Vote Leave has twice been cleared on this matter by the Electoral Commission.”
The rules on collusion are poorly drawn. Sir Craig Oliver, David Cameron’s spin doctor, who led the “remain” campaign, admits in his memoirs holding morning conference calls with satellite campaigns to co-ordinate their message.
As critics sought to tie the “leave” campaigns to the misuse of data by Cambridge Analytica, Channel 4 News said it had seen documents showing links between AIQ and Cambridge Analytica’s associated company SCL Group. Vote Leave employed a different set of data scientists, ASI. But Aggregate IQ did once build software for SCL Group.
Cummings denied this proved a link between Cambridge Analytica and Vote Leave since “AIQ was specifically bound by their contract with us not to share any data with anybody”. He accused Cambridge Analytica of selling “snake oil to gullible people” and dismissed claims of a conspiracy with Trump’s data firm as “fantasy”.
Cambridge Analytica is linked to Leave.EU, the rival “leave” campaign run by Arron Banks. He sought to recruit the firm when fighting Vote Leave to be the official “leave” campaign. When Vote Leave won, Banks and the firm parted.
Brittany Kaiser, a former Cambridge Analytica employee, says the firm did unpaid work analysing data provided by Ukip. Banks insists that it “was not used in the Brexit campaign”.
Cambridge Analytica’s chief executive, Alexander Nix, has been suspended after suggesting his team could win elections with smears and honey traps, comments he claims were taken out of context.
Today The Sunday Times reveals that Nix and SCL Group used military-style psychological operations in election campaigns. A 23-page SCL marketing document boasted its defence arm has “undertaken Psyop [psychological operation] campaigns in over 53 countries. Responsible for UK MoD, US DoD and State Department doctrinal policy . . . strategic and tactical training.”
The Ministry of Defence confirmed last week it has hired SCL as a contractor. It was reportedly paid about £190,000.
The document said the group had “managed campaigns for over 23 prime ministers, and 11 presidents”.
The group also boasted of trashing the reputation of Ralph Gonsalves, prime minister of the Caribbean island of St Vincent. “SCL digital launched a targeted digital attack,” states its marketing document. “Within three weeks every single reference to him on the first two pages of Google referred to the candidate’s horrific track record of corruption, coercion, rape allegations and victimisations.”
Gonsalves strongly denied the allegations and threatened legal action.