'Britain's EU referendum was legitimate': PM May's spokesman

Britain's vote on its EU membership was a legitimate democratic exercise, a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Tuesday after the officially designated Brexit campaign group was referred to the police over breaching spending rules.

Vote Leave, which campaigned for Brexit, was fined 61,000 pounds ($81,000) on Tuesday for breaching spending rules in the 2016 referendum and referred to the police by the Electoral Commission.

"We are very clear that this was a legitimate democratic exercise in which the public delivered its opinion and that that is what we're going to be delivering on," the spokesman told reporters.