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Wednesday 11 May 2016 1:20 pm

EU referendum: Nearly £16m in donations to registered campaigners have been reported to the Electoral Commission

By: James Nickerson

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The Leave camp has raised more than the Remain camp overall so far in the EU referendum.

Almost £16m in donations to registered campaigners in the EU referendum has been reported in the first pre-poll donations and loans report, of which more than half was donated to groups backing Brexit.

Some £15,639,146 in donations was reported between 1 February to 21 April this year. Of the 70 registered campaigners on the 28 April when reports were due, just twelve had to report.

Overall Remain had raised £7,458,712, while Leave raised £8,180,425.

Read more: EU businesses say Brexit will hurt them

On the Remain side, Britain Stronger in Europe had £6.9m donated to it, while Vote Leave was given £2.8m. 

Vote Leave and Britain Stronger In Europe are the officially designated campaign groups which are entitled to spend up to £7m. Leave.EU and Grassroots Out lost out on the designation to Vote Leave after months of bitter in-fighting on the Leave side.

Leave.EU raised £3.2m from donations, while Grassroots Out was given more than £2m.

The largest donor was Peter Hargreaves, who gave Leave.EU the entire £3.2m. Hargreaves was one of more than 100 executives from Britain's financial services industry to sign a letter backing Britain's withdrawal from the EU.

Read more: Gordon Brown joins the campaign arguing EU needs to root out tax havens

Hargreaves was followed by Lord David Sainsbury, who donated more than £2.7m in total. Some £2.5m of that went to Britain Stronger in Europe, though he also gave to the European Movement of the UK, Michelle Ovens and Scientists for EU.

Morgan Stanley donated £250,000 to Britain Stronger in Europe, while Citigroup gave the same amount. Airbus, PwC and Eurostar all gave just over £7,500 to the same campaign.

Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan also pledged £500,000 each, though outside of the reporting period.

Despite Leave having raised more overall, Vote Leave have said they are in a "David vs Goliath fight".

Former Labour foreign secretary Lord Owen said: "The EU works in the interests of the elite – the one per cent – so it is entirely unsurprising to find that the campaign to keep us in the Union is financed by big banks.

"These figures show again that we are in a David vs Goliath fight, but it is one we are determined to win – for the good of the British people."

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