Lead leavers are spending cheats

Dear Sir,

We all detest cheats.

This is well demonstrated by the way the Australian nation rightly castigated their national cricket team when they cheated during an international match because some of their players were deliberately tampering with the cricket ball.

Now, another group of cheats has been revealed - Vote Leave. They have disclosed that the Electoral Commission has found them guilty of breaking the law during the E.U. referendum.

The B.B.C. comedy show "Have I Got News For You" summed it up perfectly on Facebook with their comment " Vote Leave broke the law, reveals the Electoral Commission, coming as a huge shock to literally tens of people nationwide".

It is no surprise that Vote Leave have been found guilty of breaking the law on spending limits. Vote Leave were found to have colluded over the spending of £ 625,000 with another pro-Brexit organisation - Beleave which was run by a 23 year old fashion student. Even more damning, according to Sky News, was that Matthew Elliott, the chief executive of Vote Leave admitted that this sum of £ 625,000 was not even paid to Beleave but paid directly to Vote Leave's preferred, but then obscure, data marketing company Aggregate I.Q. which was based above an opticians shop in Columbia in Canada - supposedly at the request of Beleave. There is a similar issue with £ 100,000 donated to Veterans for Britain.

So in effect, Vote Leave have been found guilty by the Electoral Commission of exceeding the spending limits by about 9%.

The U.K. is a signatory to the Venice Commission on referendums which states "if the cap on spending is exceeded by a significant margin, the vote must be annulled."

In addition, the U.K. courts have stated that "In elections, as in sport, those who win by cheating have not properly won and are disqualified."

It is clear that those who believe in a fair and democratic process must now accept that the 2016 referendum was invalid and a valid referendum has to be run in its place.

Let us ensure that the rules are changed when this referendum is properly held with a very senior judge acting as an independent arbitrator with stringent powers to severely punish any side that blatantly breaks the rules or lies during the running of a valid E.U. referendum campaign.

The radical John Bright in 1865 said "England is the mother of parliaments".

For the U.K. to remain in high esteem for its democratic principles, there is no choice other than to have a free and fair referendum on the E.U. to erase the earlier tainted referendum.

Yours faithfully,

Robert Douglas,

2 Hollycroft,

Congleton CW12 4SH