The People’s Challenge is a unique organisation. Formed to ensure ordinary people’s fundamental rights were considered by the courts during the Miller Article 50 litigation, we are now fundraising to continue our active campaign to protect fundamental rights and promote parliamentary accountability during the critical months ahead.

We have already played a decisive role in legal battles and Parliamentary debates. We were active parties in the Miller case, thanks to one of the most successful crowdfunding campaigns ever for a legal claim. We began by forcing the Government to publish its ‘secret defence’, and made key submissions to the courts with detailed information about what was at stake including our analysis of fundamental citizenship rights.

When the case was won, we ensured parliamentarians were briefed throughout the passage of the EU (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill, using documents like Parliamentary sovereignty worth fighting for and Seven Reasons to Stand up for Parliament’s Sovereignty. We also suggested amendments.

We then published our ‘Gold Card’ guide to the UK citizens’ fundamental rights at risk.

Next, we commissioned the Three Knights Opinion, in which some of the UK’s finest legal minds confirmed that the Article 50 notice is revocable and that further Parliamentary involvement is mandatory before there can be a lawful withdrawal from the EU.

Most recently, we published a detailed but accessible guide to this and other ‘legal milestones’ on the road to Brexit.

We are a small but very active group, supported by Bindmans LLP and Monckton, Matrix and Brick Court lawyers, who work for us at rates far lower than the Government’s advisors charge them.

Nevertheless, our crowd-funded war chest to pay for our lawyers’ work is now empty, and we as individuals can’t continue to fund our time and work entirely ourselves.

As before, legal and non-legal work will be needed on the road ahead.

CrowdJustice can only be used to fund legal work, i.e. the active involvement of legal professionals. Thanks to our terrific supporters, our CrowdJustice campaign was one of the most successful ever for a legal claim, so of course we’ll be continuing with them for the legal funding. Rest assured you’ll be hearing from us again when that happens!

But we need to ensure that The People’s Challenge remains an effective champion of its supporters and ordinary people in general – people just like you and us.

The individuals of The People’s Challenge have funded the organisation and administration of the campaign since July 2016. We need to continue to work and direct the preparations needed for legal and parliamentary initiatives in the near future, and we need support in order to do it.

Without organisers there can be no effective campaign, without a client there can be no legal/judicial challenge. We need a second stream of funding for the non-legal work.

We have therefore set up The People’s Challenge Ltd as a not-for-profit organisation, which will provide equivalent standards of regulatory compliance and governance. Transparency about the money we raise and how it’s used is very important to us, as you probably know.

We are now launching a GoFundMe appeal for this second stream of funding so that we can continue the work over the coming months.

Now more than ever, an independent, non party-political voice must be heard on behalf of ordinary people. Now more than ever, we must ensure that where appropriate, legal challenges are brought and the executive is not allowed to ride roughshod over the public and Parliament. Marches show that people care, but can’t be relied upon to keep the executive within the law.

We will use the money raised to:

• hold a series of meetings with legal professionals and others to identify how we can most effectively act in the future as the UK/EU negotiations proceed and the EU Withdrawal Bill (aka the Repeal Bill) passes through parliament;

• extend the work we do with other organisations;

• with the help of our legal team, produce further briefings for the public, parliamentarians and campaign organisations on the threats to fundamental citizenship rights and/or parliamentary sovereignty;

• make modest recompense for the time and effort expended by individuals on The People’s Challenge Ltd and cover the cost of the website, phone calls, mailings, travel, meetings…

We need your support for these essential activities – activities that any effective campaigning organisation must undertake. Without your continued backing, we can’t continue helping to give ordinary people a voice.

We aim to help people and parliamentarians see what’s going on, better understand what they are, or aren’t, being told, evaluate it, and decide what would constitute the best outcome for the UK.

We are working for the outcome that’s best for the future of the UK: an outcome in the national interest, which protects everyone’s fundamental citizenship rights; an outcome that ensures that Parliament and not the executive is sovereign.

That’s the only stance we take.

If you care about the fundamental rights that Brexit puts in jeopardy, and the need for Parliament to safeguard them effectively, please send us a donation so we can maintain our campaign and continue to stand up for you.

Published by Grahame Pigney on behalf of The People’s Challenge Ltd