Daniel Hannan's group told to repay €535,000 of EU funds

Now here's a thing:

A European conservative group co-founded by the Tories and led by Brexit campaigner and MEP Daniel Hannan has been asked to repay more than half a million euros of EU funds following an investigation into their spending, the Guardian has learned. ... 

Hannan, who has championed Brexit for more than a quarter of a century and was ACRE’s secretary-general until December 2017, is told that there are grounds to suspect a conflict of interest on his part, in leaked documents seen by the Guardian. Hannan called that conclusion "absurd" and accused investigators of making false insinuations that were "outrageous".

That from a Guardian exclusive by Jennifer Rankin.

She goes on to report:

British conservative sources sought to distance themselves from ACRE, an organisation they helped to create, which has been described by some party insiders as "Daniel Hannan's travel agency".