Who paid for Brexit campaigning
The most persistent belief about the referendum is that Leave outspent Remain. On the regulator’s own record, it did not.
Reported spending by registered campaigners
- Remain — 63 registered campaigners£19,309,588
- Leave — 60 registered campaigners£13,332,569
Bars share one scale. Colour is not the only signal — each bar is labelled. Electoral Commission, Report: the regulation of campaigners at the referendum on the UK’s membership of the European Union held on 23 June 2016 ↗
Remain spent more and lost. Leave attracted marginally more in donations (52% to 48%) and spent considerably less. Any theory that referendum outcomes are bought by the higher spender has to explain 2016, and cannot.
The full picture
£32.6m
Total reported spending
£32,642,158
£30.7m
Total reported donations
Split 52% Leave / 48% Remain
£6.1m
Total reported loans
The referendum rules contained no loan controls at all.
123
Registered campaigners
63 Remain, 60 Leave
The two designated lead campaigns
Remain
The In Campaign Ltd (Britain Stronger In Europe)
£6,767,584
Leave
Vote Leave Ltd
£6,742,466
The two designated lead campaigns spent almost identical sums — £6.77m and £6.74m, a difference of £25,118 on £13.5m. Each was subject to the same statutory spending limit, so this near-parity is the rules working, not a coincidence. The £6m gap in overall side totals comes from everyone else: political parties and the 58 other registered campaigners. Combined, the two designated campaigns spent £13,510,049 — about 41% of all reported referendum spending. Political parties accounted for £9,030,300 and 58 other registered campaigners for £10,101,809.
What these figures do not include
- The £9.3m the government spent on a pro-Remain information leaflet delivered to every household, which fell outside the regulated campaign period and is not in these totals.
- Donations and loans at or below £500, which were not counted as donations under the referendum rules at all.
- Spending by campaigners who did not register, which was capped at £10,000 and not reportable.
- The outcome of the Commission’s subsequent investigations, some of which resulted in fines and referrals — the figures above are the returns as submitted.
The government leaflet is the largest of these by value. Including it would put total pro-Remain spending above £28m against Leave’s £13.3m — but it fell outside the regulated period and so is not part of the statutory return, which is why it is listed here rather than added to the chart.
What the regulator said needed fixing
The Electoral Commission’s own verdict was that the financial controls worked and improved on previous referendums — while identifying gaps serious enough to warrant formal recommendations. Several have still not been implemented.
No loan controls
The referendum rules contained no controls on loans to campaigners — £6.07m of loans was reported. The Commission’s first recommendation after the referendum was that loan controls be written into the permanent statutory framework.
No pre-poll reporting
Donations did not have to be reported until after the vote, so voters went to the polls without knowing who was funding the campaigns. The Commission recommended pre-poll reporting apply at all future referendums.
Company permissibility
The Commission recommended that government and Parliament revisit the permissibility rules on company donations, saying the current test does not fully meet the policy intention of preventing donations from foreign companies.
Rules were referendum-specific
Improvements made for the 2016 vote were legislated in the EU Referendum Act rather than in the permanent framework, so they lapse unless re-enacted. A future referendum would not automatically inherit them.
The Electoral Commission’s own verdict was that the financial controls worked and improved on previous referendums, while identifying gaps serious enough to warrant recommendations that have still not all been implemented. Both halves of that belong in any account of how the referendum was funded.
Related: who funds the parties today and the three-level test before calling any donation influence, and what the campaigns spent that money saying.