text: Leave.EU is a political campaign group that supported the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union in the June 2016 referendum.[2] Founded in July 2015 as The Know, the campaign was relaunched in September of that year with its name changed to "Leave.eu" to reflect altered wording in the referendum question.
  The campaign, along with rival organisation Vote Leave, aimed to be formally designated as the lead campaign for the "Leave" referendum vote by the Electoral Commission;[6] however, on 13 April 2016, Vote Leave was designated by the Electoral Commission as the official campaign in favour of leaving the European Union for the 2016 United Kingdom European Union membership referendum.[7]
  In the referendum held on 23 June 2016, the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union by 51.9% to 48.1%.[8] The campaign was fined £70,000 in May 2018, after the Electoral Commission found that they failed to report at least £77,380 in spending.
  In February 2019, Leave.EU and Eldon Insurance owned by its founder Arron Banks were fined £120,000 over data law breaches.[9] In April 2019, Channel 4 News found that an anti immigration viral video produced by Leave.EU during the campaign was faked, and that the group appeared to have staged photos of immigrants attacking women in the United Kingdom.[10]
  On 18 November 2015, Arron Banks would have had the opportunity to invest in a Russian gold mine, according to The Guardian, although the deal was announced in July 2016.[17] Nonetheless, gold mine discussions had no result, according to Banks.[18]
  Referendum spending investigationEdit
  On 1 November 2018, the Electoral Commission referred Arron Banks and Liz Bilney to the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency regarding the source of money used to fund Vote Leave's activities during the referendum campaign.[28][29] On 13 September 2019, the Metropolitan Police halted their investigation into Leave.EU's spending during the referendum campaign due to insufficient evidence, on the advice of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). They did however state that there had been "technical breaches" of electoral law by Leave.EU.[30] Later in the month, the National Crime Agency concluded that it had "found no evidence that any criminal offences have been committed under PPERA or company law by any of the individuals or organisations referred to it by the Electoral Commission" with regards to spending during the EU referendum campaign. They therefore chose not to take any further action against Leave.EU.[31]
  Data protection investigationEdit
  Banks's company, Eldon Insurance's Bristol headquarters was also the HQ for Leave.EU.[32] Brittany Kaiser, a former director of Cambridge Analytica has said that when she visited in the end of 2015, she saw Eldon employees staffing a call centre for the campaign. Adding that she thought the staff, most who had never participated in politics before, were calling leads or current customers of Eldon.[33]
  It was reported in April 2018 that the UK Information Commissioner's Office was investigating whether Eldon shared data with the Leave.EU campaign. Although Banks had previously admitted advertising insurance products to campaign supporters, he stated "Eldon has never given or used any data to Leave.EU. They are separate entities with strong data control rules. And vice versa."[32]