The Vote Leave scandal shows that democracy is in desperate need of defending

What goes on online during elections should be regulated and monitored as easily as what goes on the TV. We should give the Electoral Commission more resources to police election and referendum campaigns

For months now we have had a constant stream of news about Russian hacking. It’s been a stark reminder of the importance of protecting our democracy, and how a few people with malicious intent can endanger it. This alleged meddling has played Russian roulette with democracy.

In the UK, we now have our own scandal, and it involves Vote Leave. The watchdog has today found that the Vote Leave campaign got around spending limits by funnelling cash through pro-Brexit youth group BeLeave.

The founder of BeLeave, Darren Grimes, has been fined £20,000 and reported to the police, along with Vote Leave official David Halsall. That someone would donate £625,000 to an operation run by a 23-year-old who had started as a volunteer in the final days of the EU referendum campaign, and claim that this wasn’t a collusion with Vote Leave, is pretty fantastical. Darren probably felt like he’d won the lottery, but this looks dodgy as hell.

Brextremists squeaked a narrow referendum result to unleash chaos. Boris and Gove were the heads of this campaign; they might be looking back with regret on some of the things they’ve done in recent days, but now with cases being referred to the police, it is time for them to admit the campaign was fraught with problems.

Dominic Raab, Liam Fox, Chris Grayling and Andrea Leadsom also sat on the Vote Leave campaign committee, and they now need to confirm what they knew. There are serious questions to answer about what these senior ministers and now ex-ministers knew and how they should be held accountable.

Of course, Iain Duncan Smith, Steve Baker, Priti Patel and former chancellor (and French resident) Lord Lawson also sat on the “campaign committee” of Vote Leave.

It seems half the cabinet could be neck deep in this scandal. But the “significant coordination” that the watchdog found was not a simple clerical or human error, which can happen in big campaigns. It appears to have been clearly organised.

What really sticks in the craw was that Vote Leave said: “It is astonishing that nobody from Vote Leave has been interviewed by the Commission.”

But today we found out the truth. The Electoral Commission said: “Vote Leave has resisted our investigation from the start ... refused to cooperate, refused our requests to put forward a representative for interview.”

There is a serious point here. It is another case of the Trumpisation of politics: you can say whatever lie you want, repeat the lies and try to get fake news to dominate. Do whatever you want with no consequence. This has been creeping into our political culture and it needs to end, fast.

What can we do to defend our democracy? It is time to give the watchdog some teeth and the ability to raise fines that will actually hurt these campaigns.

We should also give the Electoral Commission more resources to police the campaign and referendum periods during elections, so that what goes on online can be regulated and monitored as easily as what goes on the TV. It’s time our electoral laws caught up with the digital age.

The other thing we can do is make sure we get a people’s vote on the final Brexit deal.

Whatever happened two years ago, we are facing a new situation right now. After two years, the government is in chaos, we have a first draft of a Brexit deal that has divided parliament, and by the looks of it, the nation.

It would have to be very different from the last campaign, but it’s right now that the public should get a people’s vote on which path to take now that we have the facts for the first time. It’s time for the people to get a vote on the prime minister’s Brexit deal.