Government to face legal challenge over refusal to hold Mueller-style inquiry into Brexit referendum

Exclusive: Concerns centre on Russian disinformation, data abuse and breaches of electoral spending rules during the referendum

Campaigners are preparing to launch a legal challenge against the government’s refusal to hold a Mueller-style inquiry into potential interference in the Brexit referendum.

Solicitors acting on behalf of the Fair Vote UK pressure group have sent a pre-action letter to ministers over Theresa May’s decision not to pursue an independent probe into “irregular and unlawful conduct” that sought to influence the result of the 2016 vote.

Their concerns centre on the extent of Russian disinformation, the involvement of foreign data firms such as Aggregate IQ, and breaches of electoral spending rules by Vote Leave, the official Brexit campaign.

The prime minister rejected calls for a public inquiry into the integrity of the referendum process last month, arguing it was a thinly-veiled attempt to overturn the result of the Brexit vote.

However, senior MPs, including Damian Collins – the Tory chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sports Committee – and shadow culture secretary Tom Watson, have said the UK needed a probe similar to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US elections.

Mr Watson said: “Mueller has shown that we need to follow the money – and the lies – to get to the truth about how votes are unfairly won.

“Given what we know about law-breaking, Russian involvement and massive data abuse issues, it is essential that we have a full public inquiry into what happened in the referendum.

“We need to know what went wrong so we can fix it and safeguard our democracy.”

A recent report into fake news by the DCMS committee said MPs had heard evidence of “Russian state-sponsored attempts to influence elections in the US and the UK through social media, efforts of private companies to do the same, and law-breaking by certain Leave campaign groups in the UK’s EU referendum in their use of social media”.

Mr Collins, who has clashed repeatedly with Vote Leave bosses and tech giants, warned of “a crisis in our democracy – based on the systematic manipulation of data to support the relentless targeting of citizens, without their consent, by campaigns of disinformation and messages of hate”.

He has since called for a police inquiry, telling The Times: “We have been operating at the limits of our powers in this inquiry. We’ve done things that no select committee has ever done before, but we do not have the powers that a law enforcement agency has.

“We do not have the power that Mueller has to demand to see bank records, private papers and other things.”

Lawyers acting for Fair Vote UK said there was a “compelling case” for an inquiry to carry out investigations into wrongdoing, and their arguments are in the hands of the electoral watchdog, MPs and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The Electoral Commission fined and referred Vote Leave to the police over breaches to electoral spending rules this year, something the Brexit campaign group has denied was politically motivated.

John Halford, of Bindmans LLP, said: “The basic problem with unethical and undemocratic conduct of the kind that occurred throughout the referendum campaign is that it rarely occurs openly.

“It lurks in the gaps between outdated laws, and advances through covert collaboration and with the help of foreign states and companies. As the US experience shows, special powers are needed to bring it into the light.”

Kyle Taylor, Director of Fair Vote UK, said the organisation was challenging the national vote due to ”significant public concern” about the referendum process.

The campaign has raised more than £25,000 to crowdfund the judicial review, but still needs to generate £75,000 to fund the full costs of the legal challenge.

The legal challenge could face stiff opposition from the government, as Ms May’s lawyers argued the calls appeared to be “a collateral, and poorly concealed, attack on the giving of Article 50 notification and/or the referendum outcome”.

According to the legal letter, government lawyers said: “The objective appears to be to undermine/disrupt the government’s ongoing treaty negotiation with the EU27. In the circumstances, this claim is also non-justiciable.”

They also argued the matters were being dealt with by the Electoral Commission and the police, which are the relevant bodies.