Sign up here to receive the daily news briefing in your inbox every morning with exclusive insight from the BrexitCentral team Brexit ‘insider’ claims Vote Leave team may have breached spending limits… Vote Leave may have broken the law during the EU referendum by exceeding legal spending limits, a Brexit activist has claimed. Shahmir Sanni told Channel 4 News that the official Brexit campaign used a different group, BeLeave, to overspend. Vote Leave chief Dominic Cummings has already denied the claim and said he checked with the Electoral Commission before donating money to the group. – BBC News Whistleblower alleges that electoral spending rules could have been manipulated – Observer …but Vote Leave’s strategist debunks the allegations… This is part of a long-running attempt by the Observer to claim that 1) VL was involved with Cambridge Analytica (CA) in a global conspiracy involving a nine-month long fight for the designation as the official campaign, covered intensely by the media, that was ‘really’ the most elaborate cover story since the D-Day deception operation, and 2) VL acted illegally in making donations to BeLeave (BL) and other campaign groups… You’ll see some of this play out in the papers and on TV over the next few days. But at the end of it we’ll still be leaving the EU, CA will still be charlatans, and the media still (mostly) won’t explain data and (digital) marketing well… Shahmir gave an account of what happened that is completely different to what he is now saying. I’ve no idea why he has decided to change his story, what his relationship with Wylie is, or anything else about the social lives of the whistleblowers and how this affected, if it has, what they are now saying. But journalists should ask him why he has changed his story. And did he tell the Observer/C4 about his previous account and the legal implications? – Dominic Cummings’s Blog …as Boris Johnson dismisses claims as ‘ludicrous’ Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary and a leading campaigner for Brexit, dismissed claims his side broke electoral spending rules during the 2016 EU referendum campaign as “ludicrous”. A whistleblower claimed that Vote Leave, the main campaign group advocating Brexit, sought to avoid a legal cap on spending by diverting funds to BeLeave, a separate group run by Darren Grimes, then a student activist. Coordination between supposedly independent campaigns is not allowed under electoral law. Vote Leave was reportedly close to the £7 million legal spending limit when it donated £625,000 in the final days of the referendum campaign to a smaller pro-Brexit group, BeLeave. – Telegraph (£) There are serious questions to be asked of the Electoral Commission in regards to the 2016 EU referendum. Why did the Commission tell the High Court that it never advised Vote Leave, the official pro‑Brexit campaign, that it could lawfully donate around £620,000 to a separate group? Last week, two judges ruled that this assertion was misleading – as proved by emails between Vote Leave and the Commission. How could it possibly have come to this? Electoral bodies must be seen to be entirely neutral arbiters. It is time for the Commission to face scrutiny by a parliamentary committee, to determine if it is still fit for purpose. – Telegraph editorial (£) Observer’s Whistleblower Personally Offered to Harvest Data For Vote Leave – Guido Fawkes Failed clean Brexit would be biggest ’national humiliation’ since the Suez crisis, MPs will warn Britain will suffer its biggest “national humiliation” since the Suez crisis if the Government fails to deliver a clean Brexit, the leader of a 60-strong group of Eurosceptic Conservative MPs will warn this week. In a speech on Thursday marking a year until the day of the UK’s official departure from the EU, Jacob Rees-Mogg is expected to say that if the country were “not to leave” or to find that the “transition” period became a permanent arrangement, it would cause “the most almighty smash to the national psyche that could be imagined”. It comes after EU leaders agreed details of a transition period that keeps the UK in the single market and customs union for 21 months after Brexit on March 29 2019. – Telegraph (£) European leaders set to defy Jean-Claude Juncker by vowing to expel Russian agents European leaders are poised to expel Russian spies across the Continent tomorrow, after Theresa May won promises of concerted action despite vocal resistance to confronting Moscow from leaders including Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European Commission. In the wake of the poisoning of the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, a summit meant to focus on Brexit and resisting Donald Trump’s steel tariffs instead spent nearly four hours in talks from Thursday night into the early hours of Friday, with even neutral countries such as Sweden and Finland expressing their anxiety over Russian meddling on European soil. The prime minister scotched doubts from sceptics in the room and won support for a stiffer response, in a win that surprised and delighted British observers. – The Sunday Times (£) May to tour UK to mark year until Brexit Theresa May will carry out a whistlestop tour of the UK on Thursday, a year before the country’s exit from the European Union. The tour will see the Prime Minister meet workers and families in every nation of the UK as she seeks to persuade them that Brexit can strengthen the bonds between them. Her tour comes as the administrations in Scotland and Wales remain unwilling to sign up to the UK Government’s plans for what to do with powers as they return from Brussels – straining the links between Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Westminster. And the issue of the post-Brexit border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is yet to be resolved in talks between the UK and EU. A Downing Street source said now was the time to “bring our country back together” and “celebrate our union”. – Belfast Telegraph Labour’s Owen Smith ‘stood by principles’ on Brexit Owen Smith says he “stood by his principles” in calling for another EU referendum – a move which resulted in his sacking from Labour’s shadow cabinet. The former shadow Northern Ireland secretary said Jeremy Corbyn had made a “mistake” in firing him. He also said the party should “shift its position” on Brexit. Mr Smith was asked to stand down on Friday after he wrote an article for the Guardian calling for a second vote. Speaking about his sacking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “I think it is a mistake, for Jeremy Corbyn in particular, who has always understood the value of people standing by their principles. – BBC News Mr Corbyn was right to sack Mr Smith from the Shadow Cabinet – John Redwood’s Diary David Davis: With one year until Brexit, I have never been more confident in our ability to thrive outside the EU The legal text has been marked green – good to go – and this translates, in real life, to a commitment that enables the one million Brits living in the EU and three million EU citizens in the UK to carry on living as they do now, safe in the knowledge that their rights are secured. Critically, on Friday we also saw the EU Council agree to the Commission’s recommendation on the implementation period. This is a hugely significant step. Businesses now have the certainty they asked for about life immediately after Brexit, knowing that they can trade on the same terms as they do today until the end of December 2020. Not everything is staying the same during this period, though. We can start seizing one of Brexit’s biggest prizes – negotiating, signing and ratifying our own trade deals. For the first time in 40 years we’ll have an independent trading policy, able to agree deals with old friends and new allies around the globe. – David Davis for the Telegraph (£) Keir Starmer: ‘We cannot allow Labour to break apart over Brexit’ A year and five days before the UK is due to leave the European Union, Keir Starmer is confronting a series of uncomfortable truths. He never wanted Brexit to happen and still doesn’t – but he accepts there is nothing he or anyone else can do to stop it. Asked if the impending breach with our 27 EU partners is now inevitable, the shadow Brexit secretary is clear. “Article 50 was triggered a year ago,” he says. “It expires in 52 weeks and a few days, and I don’t think there is any realistic prospect of it being revoked. Therefore we will be leaving the EU in March 2019.” So there it is. The man in charge of the Brexit policy of a pro-European opposition party that could soon be in government, that campaigned for Remain, and two-thirds of whose supporters backed staying in the European Union on referendum day, holds out no hope of reversing the decision. He takes no pleasure in saying so. “I campaigned to stay in the EU. I voted to stay in the EU and I was very disappointed by the outcome. And if there was another vote I would vote to remain in.” – Keir Starmer for the Observer Dominic Lawson: Anti-Brexit marchers are out of step with reality Never say die. Over this weekend the campaign to cancel Brexit has been holding rallies. One, in Leeds yesterday, was described (by its organiser) as “the largest pro-EU event planned in the north of England this year”. I don’t see fierce competition for that title, but well done anyway. These rallies were designed to mark the first anniversary of the UK’s invoking of article 50, under which secession from the EU must be negotiated. Unfortunately for the anti-Brexit protesters, this ineluctable element of the withdrawal process was approved by 498 votes to 114 in the House of Commons. – Dominic Lawson for The Times (£) James Forsyth: Why no deal preparations must continue Theresa May has had by far her most successful EU Council this week. The terms of the transition deal were signed off and, in a genuine diplomatic achievement, she got the EU to collectively recognise that no one other than Russia could have been responsible for the Salisbury attack. But as I say in The Sun, that doesn’t mean the government should ease off on ‘no deal’ planning.There is a sense in Whitehall that with the negotiations progressing well, there’s not much point in rocking the boat by preparing for a no deal scenario or spending money on things that might not ultimately be needed. One of those intimately involved in no deal planning complains that ‘there is an institutional reluctance to continue working on contingency in Whitehall’. – James Forsyth for The Spectator Liam Halligan: A hurried Brexit will play into EU’s hands I have long accepted, unlike many Brexit-backing economists, the need for a transition period after the UK formally leaves the EU. After over four decades of membership, extracting ourselves is a complex process. British businesses, not least our exporters, need time to adjust. It’s also clear the European Commission will keep making it as difficult as possible for the UK to agree a post-Brexit trading relationship with the remaining 27 EU member states. Clearly, post-Brexit Britain must and will continue trading extensively with the EU. I hope we do sign what the Prime Minister calls a “bold and ambitious” EU free trade agreement. But, despite the UK’s best efforts, I can’t see such a deal being agreed – let alone ratified by 27 EU parliaments and the European Parliament – before next March. – Liam Halligan for the Telegraph (£) Dia Chakravarty: Global Britain puts the interests of taxpayers ahead of misplaced economic nationalism Advocating an idea whose benefits are counter-intuitive is not easy. In situations where it appears to clash with matters of national security and deeply held emotions, the challenge is even greater.The idea I refer to is free trade, which is forever in conflict with our instinct to protect all that is valuable to us. The context, Passportgate. The fact that Gemalto, a Franco-Dutch company, is to win the contract to print the new, blue British passports has invoked a strong response among some, which in turn has provided opponents of Brexit with the chance to take a shot at the idea of a global Britain. The decision, however, deserves a fair hearing. Dia Chakravarty for the Telegraph (£) John Redwood’s speech during the debate on the economy When we first went into the EEC, we had a flourishing fishing industry, with a large number of trawlers and successful fishing ports in Scotland, England and Wales, and a net surplus of fish. We were an exporter of fish because we had access to one of the richest fishing grounds in the world in our own territorial waters and beyond. The common fisheries policy destroyed much of that. Many of our boats were lost, and much of our fishing capacity was lost. We are now a heavy net importer of fish, as a result of being part of the common fisheries policy. Our fishing grounds have been greatly damaged, because too many industrial trawlers have been allowed in from outside to do damage to the seabed and to the shoals of fish that we once had. The quota system has not really worked because of the discard policy. – John Redwood’s Diary Trade conflicts and contradictions – John Redwood’s Diary Brexit in Brief Putin and Trump have united the UK and EU – and put May streets ahead of Corbyn – Janet Daley for the Telegraph (£) Brexit transition deal irony: Remainers are the new Brexiteers – Bruce Newsome for CommentCentral