First it was election spending, now an investigation by this
programme has uncovered evidence that the Conservatives may have
breached election and privacy laws in this year's General Election.
Channel 4 News has discovered that the Conservatives used
a secretive call centre - employing up to 100 people a day
to make repeated cold calls to voters in marginal seats.
The callers bombarded undecided voters with Tory messages
on Brexit and immigration - and on election day made calls
promoting individual candidates.
Paying people to canvass for specific political
candidates is illegal.
And tonight, the Information Complaints Commissioner has told us
they will be investigating - and if anyone has not followed
the law, they will act.
Ciaran Jenkins reports.
The loudest cheers for the Prime Minister obviated kingdom.
This was the campaign the Conservative Party
wanted to see.
Teresa made to link target seats, sticking to the script
-- Teresa May to link target seats
sticking to the script.
We received a tip-off about a head and Tory
campaign you were never supposed to see.
From an unlikely place, concerns that laws protecting our
privacy and our democracy were being broken.
Whilst others were focusing on the travelling road show we were
looking here in South Wales and the secretive operation seemingly set up
to help swing the election in the Conservatives favour.
Hello, good evening.
Welcome to the call centre are being used by the
Tory campaign.
Just doing a quick one minute survey about the general
election.
From an office in the high street in the valleys of South West
Wales where jobs are scarce, wages are low and the Labour Party
dominant.
An army of young people are on the forums.
Who would you professor to
Jeremy Corbyn said he's not concerned about certain numbers of
people coming to live in the UK.
It is less than a month before polling
day and our undercover reporter has a job.
Our whistle-blower told us they had been making potentially
unlawful for calls to voters.
They have a curious management culture.
Some disgruntled staff.
Under the leadership of this man, Sasha Lopez,
failed Conservative council candidate, winner of lucrative
contracts from the Conservatives during election campaigns.
It does not make me proud to turn you on
each other but it is fun.
Today he is holding up a £50 note, he later
told us this was a joke, urging his young recruits to snitch on each
other.
If you report something and are right we can give you this 50
quid.
It seems the first rule is you do not talk about blue telecoms.
I had a guy earlier and he said where
are you falling from?
Do not mention Cardiff.
That is odd, because we are in Neath.
With the election looming the call centre is dialling
thousands of potential voters.
Claiming to be something called Axa research.
They say they are independent market researchers.
I just want to ask a few questions
about local election issues.
As they gather information from voters in
dozens of marginal seats.
Did you vote to remain a lead in the EU?
It's a legal requirement for call centres to be upfront about UVR.
Our undercover reporter wants to know.
Nothing comes up because there is no website, no phone number and it does
not exist.
We asked a top QC what the law says.
If you are going to process my data I should know who
you are and what you are going to do with my data, those are fundamental
tenants of this legislation.
What this means is if you have a
situation where the company calling you is concealing their true
identity or is misleading the person receiving the call that is obviously
a problem under the privacy legislation.
Is there any excuse for a political party to get this wrong?
I don't think in a current climate a political party can justify getting
the law wrong.
Sasha Lope 's says Axa research is a trading style and
referred us to Conservative Party HQ.
The Conservative Party would not answer our questions but did admit
that blue telecoms were working for them.
But there are more questions and more potential illegalities.
You might recall as the election neared
Theresa May said this.
If we lose just six seats the government loses
its majority.
And that means Jeremy Corbyn in number ten.
Within hours, in Neath...
I am calling quickly on behalf of the Conservative Party...
The call centre started seeing it as well.
It would just take six seats...
But now calling overtly on
behalf of the Tories.
A hung parliament and the chance for Jeremy
Corbyn to become Prime Minister.
What you are about to hear could have severe Conservative club party
consequences, 20 million UK landline numbers are registered with the
Telephone preference service.
These households have opted out of
nuisance calls.
It is illegal to call them to promote anything
including political parties.
That vast swathes of households are the
forbidden fruit of election phone campaigning.
An untapped pull of voters that by law are tantalisingly
out of reach.
With one exception.
You can call them to conduct a genuine market research.
We can reveal the Tory call centre was cold
calling voters from among the millions of land lines that have
expressly rejected nuisance calls.
87-year-old Mary was one of them.
You said no nuisance calls.
No nuisance calls.
And when you are living alone and the phone rings it
makes you anxious.
So if this turns out to have been a call which was
sanctioned by the Conservative Party what would you like to tell them as
someone on the receiving end?
I would tell them what to do with it,
stick it where a monkey sticks his naps!
We will come back to May but first the matter of what these calls
intended to achieve.
The day before the election a visitor, the director
of the Welsh Conservatives.
His appearance coincides with the call
centre saying very different things to different types of voters.
Good evening...
On the voter who has opted out of nuisance calls and when
he says he is torn...
Can I asked what the chances are of you voting
for each of the following parties...
On the eve of the election a special message for undecided voters.
It was reported Jeremy Corbyn was not
concerned about numbers of people coming to live in the UK and it was
reported on Sky News that Theresa May restated her pledge to reduce
net migration, does thinking about these reports in the media and a
reports you live in a marginal constituency that may determine who
is Prime Minister for the Brexit negotiations, does that make you
more likely to back Theresa May or Jeremy Corbyn?
By the end of the call, just listen who he favours.
The Conservatives say they did commission lawful marketing calls,
blue telecoms insists they did not.
We sure this exchange to an expert on political campaigning.
Having seen this footage where do you think
this balls?
Is it an election survey or is it promoting the preserve of
the party?
This is canvassing.
It cannot be re-search, all the
questions are loaded, a lot of them are rhetorical in that sense of
guiding you towards one answer.
It's canvassing, it replicates the sorts
of scripts I've seen used on doorsteps by parties for many years.
So you can identify techniques designed to persuade people?
Definitely.
Blue telecoms says all the scripts were provided by the
Conservative Party.
How many voters may have been persuaded?
In an Alexa and that was in the balance that is
now a fundamental The 8th of June, polling day.
With the Welsh Conservative director
still at his side, Sasha Lopez is confident of victory.
The country is turning blue.
And the Tory call centre seems to have adopted a
strategy.
I'm calling on behalf of Ruth Davis.
I'm calling on behalf of...
Making calls on behalf of specific Conservative candidates and
seats around Wales.
It's illegal to pay someone to encourage people to
vote for a particular candidate.
The point is to win shrine in our law
the principal that elections can't be bought.
So it was election day, was it?
It was election day.
Mary in Caerphilly got a call.
The phone rang, I picked it up.
I said, who is calling?
You said the Conservative Party.
The Conservative Party?
Yes.
But something strange was happening.
With non-Conservative voters like Mary, the call centre would soon
hang up.
Conservative voters alone were reminded to vote.
Time is running out.
What time do you think you will head out to vote?
What are they trying to achieve here?
They are trying to get their support out
the vote, is the usual job of a canvas.
Except this time it's a call centre and people are being paid.
Indeed.
There are legal constraints in the representation of peoples act
around paying people to canvas, effectively, the campaign.
Presumably this is something incredibly rare?
I don't want to make any comments on how rare it is.
It's something that is permitted by law.
It amounts to a criminal offence.
-- not permitted by law.
Who knows what effect the overall campaign had, as the night the
information Commissioner is asking the Conservative Party for answers.
This former worker has no doubt about what he was asked to do.
The workers, the workers need money,
they are first jobs, stay at home mothers, they all need money.
There was very little people who would
look up and question and it shocked me, because despite my own political
beliefs, what they were asking us to see was blatantly -- what they were
asking us to say was blatantly Tory propaganda.
Sasha Lopez and the Tory party are at odds.
He says they'd pobbling and research but not
canvassing and marketing.
The Conservatives say there were
marketing calls.
They can't both be right.
They are -- their claims they obeyed the law will now face severe
scrutiny.