Nick Clegg MP believes democracy can find a Brexit loophole. In support of a crowdfunded anti-Brexit campaign that garnered over 3,000 backers in less than a week, Clegg believes that “the government cannot afford to continue alienating great swathes of the electorate.”
Campaign founders, Remain Strategic, originally started the campaign from a single Facebook post that hit over 1,500 likes within a few hours. “The amazing extent of support for the campaign reveals the level of dismay across the country amongst the ignored electorate at Theresa May’s increasingly heartless Brexit,” said Martin Evans, the brains behind the campaign.
“This campaign will finally take their frustration out of their homes, pubs and internet groups, and into the spotlight, on the streets of the United Kingdom. If people feel silenced,” Evans continued, “they should contribute to this campaign, use their voice, write to their MPs, and most importantly, stop accepting the myth that they are part of an irrelevant minority.”
Remain Strategic set an original funding target of £25,000, which it reached in under 12 hours. Now Remain Strategic expect to raise more than £75,000 to deliver a strong message to parliament through national advertising ahead of the amendments to the Government’s Brexit bill, announced last week.
“We are not the liberal elite. We are not the privileged few. We are the suppressed many. The ordinary people who did not vote for this. We are still here and we are not going away. We love our country and believe it deserves better than this” Evans added.
“Public appetite for this campaign clearly shows that the government cannot afford to continue alienating great swathes of the electorate.” – Nick Clegg
According to Remain Strategic’s Liz Ferretti, the number of households concerned about Brexit jumped by 20 percent in the last three months of 2016. “Now price hikes are starting to bite, and the hardest hit are those least able to cope, with nearly 60 per cent of households worried about food costs. Trebling inflation and the collapse in the value of sterling mean it’s only going to get worse. This is reality for the ordinary people of the United Kingdom who are scared by what they are hearing in the news every day. The Government is not listening,” she said. “And from the level of support for our campaign across social media, it is clear that our voices need to be heard.”
The campaign took to the crowd, convinced that the 48 per cent who voted to stay in the EU on June 23rd 2016 are still just as discontent with the majority vote. According to Ferreti, the crowdfund backers “largely perceive that the government is using these mantras as a smokescreen behind which to railroad the country into a Brexit more brutal than all but the most right-wing leave voters might have imagined.”
For Sue Ellar of Represent Us, it’s a matter of democracy, where members of the public need to be consulted on decisions that could rock generations. “Indicators point to the fact that the government’s current position is supported by 33 per cent of the electorate at best and quite probably a lot less. This makes it even more crucial that the government provides further opportunities for the public to be consulted,” she said.
The campaign founders aim to use this support to “start a conversation that will continue for the foreseeable future.”
