Legal case against Brexit campaign goes to CPS to decide whether to prosecutre

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is considering whether to prosecute Brexit campaigners for statements made during the European referendum campaign. If the case goes ahead, it will put to the legal test a relatively new part of election law.

The Guardian explains the background:

The director of public prosecutions is considering a complaint that voters were misled by the Vote Leave and Leave.EU campaigns, in contravention of electoral law.

The complaint about “undue influence” on the referendum campaign has been submitted by an independent group, spearheaded by Prof Bob Watt [who actually uses a lowercase b on his name], an expert in electoral law from the University of Buckingham…

Watt and his colleagues who have prepared the case say it centres on “instances where the leave campaigns continued to make assertions of fact that were knowingly misleading”, including the oft-cited claim of the EU costing the UK £350m a week.

The law involved is the offence of “undue influence”, which is one packed full of esoteric test cases, often involving nineteenth century clergy and threats of damnation. Changing the wording of this offence is also a favourite of plans to modernise election law. One problem is the lack of modern, relevant case law. In particular the broadening of its definition in 2006 takes this case into uncharted legal territory:

Under electoral law “undue influence” is considered a corrupt practice and includes the use of “a fraudulent device or contrivance” to “impede or prevent or intend to impede or prevent the free exercise of the franchise”…

[This] law was changed by the Electoral Administration Act of 2006, which made an attempt to mislead voters an offence of “undue influence” – although Watt said that had not been tested by the courts so far.