Dominic Cummings, the campaign director of the Vote Leave group, has pre-empted a formal part of the referendum process by describing his group as the official leave campaign.
In an email sent on Wednesday morning to advertising agencies, Cummings asked whether they would like to “help us spend 7 million quid” making Vote Leave’s advertisements during the campaign.
Cummings wrote: “Hello. I’m campaign director of Vote Leave. We will be the official leave campaign in the imminent referendum. We need an agency to help us spend 7 million quid. If interested could we talk asap? We have Boris and Michael Gove on board plus Labour and business people … ”
The email raised eyebrows because the Electoral Commission has yet to designate the lead campaign groups on either side. The process will conclude on 1 April once secondary legislation to allow the designation has been passed. The two lead campaigns will each be allowed to spend £7m.
Britain Stronger in Europe is widely expected to be designated as the pro-EU lead group because all the main pro-EU groups have been brought under its auspices. But there are divisions among anti-EU campaigners. Grassroots Out (GO), which is funded by the Ukip donor Arron Banks, will challenge Vote Leave to be the main Brexit group.
Vote Leave sources confirmed the authenticity of the Cummings email. They said it was natural to describe Vote Leave as the official leave campaign because it was wise to start making preparations before a relatively short referendum campaign. Vote Leave is confident that it will beat Grassroots Out to the designation and describes its rival as the “George Galloway campaign”, after the Respect party founder attended a recent GO event.
James Murphy, founder and chief executive of Adam and Eve DDB, said: “It’s no surprise that Vote Leave are scrabbling around the market offering a huge amount of money to agencies. There is a clear consensus across the whole advertising and creative industry that we’re a huge exporting success because we’re part of Europe. Why would a highly successful, outward-facing industry and country want to take such a huge step back?”
