Brexit campaign group launches news website to ‘keep alive ethos of 2016 referendum’

A Brexit campaign group that was fined for breaking electoral law has launched a news website.

Leave.EU – which was fined £70,000 by the Electoral Commission for breaking spending rules during the referendum – has launched The Foxhole to “keep alive the grassroots ethos of the 2016 referendum”, clearly bored after achieving its modus operandi, Brexit.

Their website says: “Welcome to the Foxhole, a news website that goes against the grain of our media elites and speaks to the concerns of normal people.

“We see this site as a digital foxhole – a defensive position on the battlefield of information warfare, protecting us from an onslaught of corporate censorship and allowing us to better represent the views and concerns of millions of ordinary people who are badly served by the established press.”

To give you an idea of the sort of stories the site covers – and the tone it employs – a story about the student protests at a school in London’s Pimlico, which took place amid claims the policies discriminated against Muslim and Black students, is headlined: “Woke pupils walk out over uniform policy and Union flag being flown at school.”

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Another headline on a story about the controversial race review reads: “Race review destroys BLM and woke claims about modern Britain - white children struggling most.”

The launch comes after Arron Banks, who funded Leave.EU, settled a dispute with the Electoral Commission last year, after they referred Banks to the National Crime Agency regarding the fine issued to the campaign group in May 2018.

The commission said the group had exceeded the spending limit for “non-party registered campaigners” by at least 10% by failing to include at least £77,380 in its spending return. However, the NCA found “no evidence” of criminal offences.

Last month, the group also lost an appeal against £105,000 of fines for data protection violations in the wake of the EU referendum campaign. The fines were issued for including promotions for Bank’s insurance brand, GoSkippy, in emails to Leave.EU subscribers between August 2016 and February 2017 and “ineffectively” segregating customer data from that of political subscribers.

It was also fined for using Bank’s company Eldon Insurance customers’ details unlawfully to send out almost 300,000 political marketing messages before the referendum. Banks said Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance “will be appealing the fines”.

The Foxhole is owned by Summit Media, which is directed by Liz Bilney, CEO of Leave.EU. Those wishing to experience the website without adverts can become members for £3 a month.

We think we’ll set that money aside for when pubs reopen.