I will never forget the night of 23rd June 2016, when 17.4 million people voted – in the biggest act of democracy in our nation’s history – to leave the European Union. Against all odds, and in the face of the fiercest of campaigns by the political establishment, Vote Leave secured our nation’s future.
But when the campaign’s leading lights had moved on to the next chapter of our political history, I had to endure years of unnecessary persecution by the Electoral Commission, watching it plainly overstepping its role as regulator and acting beyond the powers granted to it by Parliament.
My “crime” was choosing to participate as a volunteer in our democracy for something I passionately believed in – and still do. As a result of that decision, the Electoral Commission – a supposedly impartial state regulator – took up some of the best years of my life and the process it put me through was a punishment in itself.
So I decided to put the whole experience into a book, Last Man Standing: Memoirs from the front line of Brexit. My principal motivation is to ensure that our democracy is better served in future by more efficient, precise and impartial running of our institutions.
I got involved with the Brexit campaign because I believed then, as now, that the European project was doomed to fail. One example is that as the chairman of Silver Cross, I saw how regulations in Brussels served those businesses who could afford expensive lobbyists, and stymied competition for SMEs.
So I became the Vote Leave “Responsible Person”, meaning I was the person who was legally responsible for the campaign’s actions, ensuring that it spent its money in accordance with the rules.
Once the referendum was over, I had expected to slink towards retirement and reacquaint myself with my pitching wedge. It wasn’t to be. The Electoral Commission decided to investigate Vote Leave and me, as its responsible person, to ensure there were no false spending declarations made during the campaign. At first I didn’t have a problem with this. Of course it’s fair for an impartial body, tasked with enforcing electoral law, to reassure itself that the rules were followed.
What followed was anything but impartial. Here began an ever-changing nightmare and the perpetration of untrammelled power by the Electoral Commission. It felt as though the Electoral Commission was out to get me and wanted me to languish in jail.
This process lasted two years. We exchanged dozens of letters, it took up precious weeks of my life responding to their questions, and I was forced to incur hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of legal bills.
And after this two year torture, the then CEO of the Electoral Commission, Claire Bassett – with no notice to me or Vote Leave – went on BBC Radio 4 to announce proudly that I had been referred to the Metropolitan Police for criminal investigation.
Needless to say, the Metropolitan Police Service found no evidence of wrongdoing and closed the investigation. But it was still a full four years after the referendum before I could finally close this psychologically scarring chapter for good.
The Police severely criticised the Commission’s approach to the gathering and disclosure of evidence. If only Claire Bassett and her colleagues were as meticulous in investigating and gathering evidence as they were at securing slots on the Today programme.
The Metropolitan Police said: “The Electoral Commission’s approach to the gathering and disclosure of evidence does not appear to the Metropolitan Police Service to have complied with the letter or the spirit of the Criminal Procedure and Investigation Act 1996 and associated guidance.”
So the Electoral Commission, according to the Police, didn’t just break the law, it broke the spirit of the law. And as Dominic Cummings says in the foreword to my book, the Electoral Commission’s actions were not only “profoundly unfair” and “immoral” but it pursued an “unlawful persecution”.
But surely there’s no smoke without fire? Surely the Electoral Commission didn’t behave in a politically motivated fashion, or unlawfully, and it was only doing its best in difficult circumstances?
I’d usually be forgiving too. I’ve encountered so many people who do so much good in the service of this country. But not once did the Electoral Commission interview me or anyone at Vote Leave. You would have thought that if they had a genuine case, they would have wanted to put it to me.
We offered the Electoral Commission the chance to interview both me and other senior representatives of Vote Leave. Our offer was not taken up and then, when interviewers on the Today programme put to Claire Bassett that Vote Leave “weren’t given a chance to state their case”, she stated live on air that we had refused their requests for an interview. I can only describe that as a brazen falsehood.
Throughout this entire process the Electoral Commission seemed to think that the need to uncover wrongdoing outweighed the importance of getting to the truth: a truly remarkable motivation for a quango whose major role is to ensure fair play in our electoral process.
While writing this book, I’ve thought back to the sacrifices made by so many in World War One and World War Two, where my grandfather fought in the trenches and where my Uncle, Donald Halsall, made the ultimate sacrifice at the age of 20.
Donald’s sacrifice loomed large over my childhood. We all have these losses which may to some extent have gone unprocessed. As I came to write my book, I realised there must be some sort of connection between my story and Donald’s.
I was fighting because I believed in a cause. Of course, I believe in Brexit but more importantly I believe that the result of the most important vote in our history should be respected. We don’t have a democracy without respect for our system, and it’s our way of life which our ancestors were fighting for all those years ago.
The story of our nation has for a long while now been a story of the popular vote translated into government. I can remember many election results which I didn’t like the look of. I can also remember how we were huddled on the night of the EU referendum expecting to lose – which also meant accepting an adverse result.
If you believe in nationhood at all, then you have to accept that we share a narrative with those who have gone before, and that they have bestowed an obligation on us to create a country worthy of their sacrifice. And no country can survive without a respect for its institutions and its democratic processes.
When I volunteered to help the Vote Leave campaign I genuinely thought that the Electoral Commission was an independent body which sought to promote public confidence in the democratic process and ensure its integrity. Knowing what I now know, I cannot say in all honesty that I would volunteer again. In fact, I’d run a mile.
But that’s not good enough. We need volunteers in our democracy, and so the system must change and I hope the Electoral Commission, and government more widely, ensures that this sort of thing never happens again.
You can buy Last Man Standing, Alan Halsall’s book about the misery he was put through by the Electoral Commission, here.
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I often used to pass Milliband senior on the street when I lived in Manhattan. I wondered why he had left the UK and politics. Now, after 14 years of Tory governments either asleep or unable to get legislation passed the civil service or NGOs, I realize the attraction of being in globalist job, dedicated to increasing immigration to the West.
I preferred the real, original International Rescue who built their capabilities entirely through private enterprise and without public money. FAB!
Now remind me, were not all the Tory leadership (sic) contenders part of government. Did they pay no attention.
Which of their colleagues do they say let them down, and us? Collective responsibility means all of them.
Wait –
No, it must be a coincidence. Miliband is quite a common surname.
What blessings did Ralph Milliband bequeath upon the British with his sons David and Ed. They represent the Bat , or bloodsucker in David , and the Rat , or vermin in Ed .
Together, the Milibrains of Britain…
What a society we have built, where people fail upwards.
Slightly off-topic: Grangemouth workers rally to save oil refinery jobs says the BBC.
Perhaps they didn’t read the Labour (or Conservative) manifesto?
I trust David’s weird brother Ed will go up to Grangemouth to explain why they’re f****d?
Net zero by 2050! Yay!
Let the anger build further.
https://davyudal.substack.com/p/bill-gates-and-who-call-for-military
The next Scamdemic must be getting close.
Lord Bill of the Gates of Hell calling for military roundups of those refusing the next death jab when the Bird ‘Flu is given the get go.
Is this round your neck of the woods, hux? I suspect the ”black and white scarfs” they’re referring to aren’t the type worn by NUFC supporters, but the other ones we’re all too familiar with by now. I hope they catch the filthy scumbags, and if it was early evening some passersby must have seen them somewhere, but respect to this man for bravely reporting this. They’ll be likely to strike again unless they’re caught;
”Officers are appealing for information following reports of a serious sexual assault near Wrigley Head in Failsworth, Oldham, yesterday evening (Friday 2 August 2024).
At around 5.55pm, a man was approached by three men and was assaulted and subjected to a serious sexual assault. He is currently being assisted by specialist officers and his wellbeing and care is at the heart of their ongoing work.
Officers believe this to be a targeted attack and there is no risk to the wider public.
We are now looking to speak to three men in relation to this incident and they are described as black men in their 30s, with black and white scarfs round their necks and of an athletic build. One man was wearing jeans and another wearing trousers with pockets on.”
https://www.gmp.police.uk/news/greater-manchester/news/news/2024/august/officers-appeal-for-information-following-a-serious-sexual-assault-in-oldham/
Thanks Mogs. Very close to us. Failsworth is a mid point more or less between Oldham and Manchester. Like many places it has become rather grim over the last twenty years and its no stranger to knife crime and murders.
I have just been reading the Comments section at TCW. Quite a few reports that the Calais Yatch Club arrivals are masquerading as the Muslim Defence League and are being bussed around the country to riot. They are uniformly dressed in black with balaclavas. Local mosques are used to store and dish out their arms – knives, hammers etc.
As I have been posting for about three years.
Good job the courts are open all night then , that’ll fix it !
The response by Dr Hotez is chilling. “We need to get Homeland Security involved because this is a security problem. 200,000 Americans died because of anti-vaccine aggression, so this is now a lethal force.” Meanwhile, he is happily lining his own pockets while developing vaccines funded by the US health authorities.
Off-T
Frank Haviland – no holding back.
https://thenewconservative.co.uk/the-frank-report-lxxxi/
“With tensions running high in Southport, you’d have thought Prime Minister Starmer would be eager to reassure the public. And yet, our dear leader, two-tier Keir, didn’t want to talk about any of that in his address to the nation. I mean it’s not as if it was something important like Black Lives Matter, Hamas-supporting Jew haters, or Persephone, Margaux and Lucinda from Just Stop Oil having something racy to discuss in the Oxbridge bars that evening. This was just little girls getting slaughtered in broad daylight, and the votes Labour can hope to extract for opposition to that are close to zero.”
“Seventh Century medievalism is now a permanent feature of the landscape in Britain, aided and abetted by the police.”
https://x.com/DVATW/status/1819803537657770287
Video of muzzies openly brandishing machetes and those “large, curved kitchen knives”(sic) presumably as used by the alleged Southport slaughterer.
Don’t worry it’s knuckle dragging morons we have to be fearful of according the The Daily Wail yesterday , Do you think this so called uniformed MDL are independent or HMG organised ?
Do you genuinely believe that that is a recent video and that it’s in any way threatening?
Another Free loading nose in the trough C U Next Tuesday waste of space nonentity !!
So why was a supposedly Conservative Government shovelling British taxpayers’ money at a foreign “charity” run by a Socialist?
That’s where the problem starts. They shouldn’t have been receiving ANY British taxpayers’ money.
I do hope this is the end of Sneer and I wonder if the kindly Bliar was egging him on behind the scenes or even wrote the speech.
What a loathsome family.