merelygifted:

Conservative leadership candidates Boris Johnson and Michael Gove are facing growing calls to account for illegal behaviour by the official Vote Leave Brexit campaign.

The group has dropped its appeal against the Electoral Commission’s ruling that it broke the law by channelling hundreds of thousands of pounds of donations to an ostensibly independent campaign group, BeLeave.

When the Observer revealed evidence a year ago that Vote Leave had broken spending rules, Johnson attacked the report on Twitter as “utterly ludicrous” and said it had “won … legally”. A Johnson adviser said on Saturday that the former foreign secretary would not comment on the end of the appeal.

Labour deputy leader Tom Watson called on Johnson to recognise the campaign acted illegally. “I’m sure the man who seeks to be your prime minister will acknowledge … Vote Leave broke the law,” he said on Twitter.

Gove has previously said the appeal prevented him from commenting on the ruling, but his office did not respond to a request for a comment now the legal process has ended.

Anna Soubry, the former Tory MP who joined the Independent Group, called for a full explanation from both men, and dismissed the claim the appeal had been dropped for financial reasons.

“The one thing we do know, all these people have access to considerable amounts of money, so to say they are dropping it for lack of funds is absolutely ludicrous,” she said.

“Johnson and Gove should be providing a full and proper explanation to the British people following the dropping of this appeal.” She added she expected to one day see a “public inquiry into what happened and how we got into this terrible mess”.

Gove and Johnson played key roles in Vote Leave, Gove as co-convener and Johnson as a figurehead for the official Brexit campaign. A series of other senior government or Tory figures also sat on its committee, including Liam Fox, Iain Duncan Smith, former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab and the former international development secretary Priti Patel. …