A question I have been asked in the past few days, a question that is similar to many that I have been asked over the past couple of years:
“There seem to be several initiatives similar to yours to STOP Brexit. Couldn’t they be co-ordinated in some way so that donated money is not spread so thinly?
Is the STOP BREXIT campaign being run in the most efficient way? Money donated to ‘no hopers’ is a complete waste.”
The work we are doing is not simply about “STOPping BREXIT” it is about the consequences of what happens to fundamental citizenship rights and parliamentary sovereignty when a dogmatic, myopic, government interprets a referendum result in such a way as to ensure it remains in power.
Frankly, no legal challenge will of itself “STOP BREXIT”, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.
What the legal challenges and the legal opinions can do is provide our parliamentarians with the tools to challenge the UK’s government and assert the power and authority of the UK’s Parliament.
Different groups have different skills, objectives and expertise.
The People’s Challenge does not have the money or the reach to organise local events and marches. On the other hand, nobody else is doing the work that The People’s Challenge is engaged in to identify, articulate and challenge the threats to fundamental citizenship rights and parliamentary sovereignty.
There is far more co-operation and sharing of information happening than might be perceived. The People’s Challenge regularly shares the information, advice and opinion it has obtained with everybody.
For instance, we published regular updates about our Divisional Court and Supreme Court challenges and commissioned and published the Three Knights Opinion: the latter forms a significant part of at least one of the current legal challenges. We will publish the results of our team’s work on the Millions in the Margins on the same basis.
We have worked with other groups on other initiatives. For instance, we and many others spent a lot of time and effort helping to ensure that the “March in March” in 2017 actually happened, as well as sharing information and expertise in campaigns to inform MPs and members of the House of Lords.
Another example of how the various groups co-operate is on the march that is coming up on 23rd June. That is an effort involving many groups, large and small. Our input will be modest but we have offered to organise a reprint of our “Gold Card” membership benefits booklet and are hopeful that one or more of the larger organisations will co-operate with us on the production and distribution to local groups.
However, there are restrictions on how much groups can co-operate, as we have seen with the alleged co-operation between various Leave groups in the referendum campaign.
The work we are now doing is focused on the arbitrary and possibly discriminatory framework being used by the EU and the UK to protect what they define as EU citizenship rights for the purposes of the exit negotiations.
Broadly speaking, the EU and the UK have decided that EU citizenship rights have only been exercised, and therefore need protecting, in the situation where an EU citizen is currently resident in an EU country other than his/her country of nationality.
This is plainly a nonsense as there are many ways of making significant personal, family and financial decisions based on EU citizenship rights which do not involve being resident in another EU member state at the time of making the decision or perhaps at all.
Equally nonsensically, the individual may well have been resident in another EU state at some time in the past, the fact that they are currently not resident in that state, or any other of the states, does not in some way “un-exercise” those rights.
We are looking at the various courses of action open to individuals and groups of individuals in a wider context than just EU law, and in a wider context than just the British nationals currently living in EU27 countries.
We also want to be able to present this researched and documented legal advice to MPs, MEPs and members of the UK devolved assemblies. Ultimately it is these representatives of ours who need to be fully informed about what is happening so that they can make the appropriate decisions.
This work is important, perhaps even crucial, for the reasonable and equitable treatment of all EU citizens, including British nationals at home or in EU27 countries, at a time when governments and administrations are seemingly focused on simplistic and expedient solutions.
It is also important as it will help provide further evidence of just how individuals and small business will be impacted by Brexit.
Contrary to what the Government would like us to believe, we, and they, are faced with a complex, multi-facetted problem. They are apparently in deep denial about this, but we must not be.
The problem needs multi-lateral/multi-layered solutions so that we can collectively maximise the lines of attack. It will require a number of the best of those solutions in order to find the answers that are the best for the UK and its people.
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We value your support. Just keeping track of the campaigns and challenges that have objectives that match our own takes time and effort, much of what we do costs money that we can only afford to spend with the financial support of people like you.
If you share our concerns about the work needed to promote the outcome which is in the best interests of the UK, please consider making a donation by clicking on the Gold Card image above.
Many people have contributed not once but multiple times and we know that there are practical limits on what people can do. Whether you can make another contribution or not please spread the word among your contacts and on the social media.
Our aim is to help people see what’s going on, understand what they are, or aren’t, being told, and decide what is the best outcome for the UK: an outcome in the national interest, protecting fundamental citizenship rights and ensuring Parliament and not the executive is sovereign.
There is still a long way to go and there are no guarantees about what the outcome will be. The only thing that is certain is that if we stop trying we will lose.
To help protect our fundamental rights, and support Parliament in safeguarding them, please send us a donation so we can maintain our campaign and make your voice heard.
Please share this article as widely as you can, thank you very much for your support.
Published by Grahame Pigney on behalf of The People’s Challenge Ltd.