The People's Challenge

EU Citizenship Rights are still worth fighting for!

Posted on January 6, 2020 by Grahame Pigney

With the New Year comes new but not unexpected work for the People’s Challenge.

We are now approaching the final stretch on Brexit, one way or the other crunch time is approaching. This is going to, at the very least, involve legal work if not court challenges.

But before that, and just as importantly, we need to assess the position with the network of grassroots pro-EU groups, which were working well until the opposition parties decided to hand Boris Johnson a get-out-of-jail-free card with a General Election.

As part of this, we plan to attend the Grassroots for EU conference in London on the 25^thof this month.

Our aims are to expand our networking, seeking to avoid previous mistakes made by others in this area, and to avoid any further narrowing of the issues, or maybe, dare we dream, to promote a broadening of the issues: UK citizens who are UK-resident with property in the EU (perhaps bought in anticipation of retirement there), UK citizens who own/operate a business that does business in the EU, UK citizens with other financial interests in the EU, etc…

People who have exercised their EU citizenship rights, not just those who currently reside in EU27 states, are going to be penalised for having done so.

Every UK citizen, regardless of country of residence, will lose both current and future rights as a result of Brexit. This is because, even three years plus after the referendum, negotiators have failed, possibly deliberately, to get to grips with the variety and complexity of individuals’ personal situations.

But the UK and the EU must not be allowed to sacrifice rights which have been available to us for over forty years on the altar of “question too difficult, so we’ll ignore it”.

Yet again, it will take money to fight against loss of rights, against the glossing over of multiple issues important to many UK citizens and affecting all of them, because it’s supposedly just “Get Brexit done” – a laughable concept.

This time of year is often associated with extra expenditure and this is also true for The People’s Challenge, but not for the usual seasonal reasons. We have had to renew various subscriptions, pay registration fees and provide for accountancy fees, plus other associated running costs for the organisation. Together, relatively small expenses like these continue to slowly but steadily eat through our modest finances.

The directors of the People’s Challenge can no longer bear this financial burden personally, and so as we have before, we’re asking you for funding in order for us to pursue the larger goals and keep the smaller but vital matters under control.

Please help us if you can – as you know, your support is vital to us, and as ever, we thank you for it.

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We greatly value your support. Many of you have been with us for a good while and have donated not just once but multiple times. We thank you all for it, and we do know that there are practical limits to what people can contribute.

Whether you can donate right now or not (if you can, please click on the image above to do so), please spread the word among your contacts and on social media. Have you got a fiver you could spare for us? Could you spare us a fiver next month, the month after…?

Our ability to continue this work teeters on a knife edge – limited, but of course very welcome, funding from our GoFundMe crowdfunder, barely enables us to continue and relies on the directors covering the shortfall.

This is how we are funded, we receive nothing from the big campaign groups, business, philanthropic bodies, political parties…

We follow matters as they develop. They’re always volatile, and in these times of Brexit extensions and the hiatus of a General Election it means that days’ or weeks’ worth of work has to be set aside or even lost completely as the situation changes.

Our aim is to help people to see what’s going on, to understand what they are (or aren’t) being told, and to decide what’s best for our country: what’s really in the national interest, what protects fundamental citizenship rights and ensures that Parliament and not the executive (the government) is sovereign.

To help protect our fundamental rights, and support Parliament in safeguarding them, please support The People’s Challenge, so we can continue to help make your voice heard.

There’s still a way to go (despite the repeated ”fixed” deadlines) and there are no guarantees about the outcome. The only thing that’s certain is that if we stop trying, we will fail.

As we all know, without organisers there can be no effective campaign, without a client there can be no legal/judicial challenge.

Please share this article as widely as you can, and thank you again for your support.

You can follow us via our blog, on Twitter @PeoplesChalleng and our Facebook page.

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

Posted in Brexit, Democracy, The Millions in the Margins, What is Best for the UK? | Tagged Brexit, The Millions in the Margins, What is Best for the UK? | Leave a comment

Making your vote count is not just about registering and voting. Your vote has to help ensure that we get, in THIS election, what is Best for the UK!

Posted on November 11, 2019 by Grahame Pigney

A week ago we published a blog piece on How do you make sure your vote counts in this General Election? including some information about the effects, intended and unintended, of tactical voting.

In that post, we put links to two of the tactical voting sites. Don’t Split The Remain Vote has pulled together recommendations from these two sites and others, including Remain United. They will update their site as these recommendations are updated and others are released. Don’t Split The Remain Vote allows you to look up these predictions using a postcode or the name of a constituency.

Tactical Voting – intended and unintended consequences

Whichever tactical voting site you look at, the advice provided may well change over time because:

Candidates for the constituency have not yet been confirmed (we won’t have confirmed candidates until 15th November at the earliest);
The polling data changes.

For example, the Best for Britain site was going to back Labour in Canterbury, LibDem in Oxford East & Abingdon and Tory in Aberconwy. This has now changed, as the pro-EU Tory MP for Aberconwy (Guto Bebb) has decided not to stand, and Best for Britain now recommends Labour in Aberconwy.

The tactical voting sites will inevitably have varying recommendations. The recommendations are driven by the objective each site has and the methodology it’s used to analyse the data.

There is no single tactical voting site that’s a “magic pill” guaranteed to give the “right” recommendation. You need to inform yourself by looking at the various recommendations, following the local polling and past voting in your constituency, to decide on the vote that will stand the best chance of contributing to the national result that you want.

A cautionary tale: an analysis of the 1997 General election result showed that between 1 in 10 and 1 in 3 tactical votes went the “wrong way” – that is from a second place candidate who had a chance of winning to a third place candidate who didn’t.

The current, very volatile, nature of voting intentions will change this to some extent, but the same analysis showed that only 5-10% of voters voted tactically in 1997. It says that doubling this percentage to 15-20% will make a difference, but warns against overestimating the possible effects of tactical voting.

Splitting the pro-EU/pro-Referendum vote is equally bad, this was how the Brexit Party/UKIP managed to increase their representation in the European Parliament in this year’s MEP elections.

The Brexit Party’s announcement today that it won’t contest the 317 seats the Tories won in 2017, effectively creating a Leave alliance, will probably result in some changes to the pro-EU/pro-referendum tactical voting sites.

What it certainly means is that it is even more important that people act on facts of the situation in their constituency and vote pragmatically for a pro-EU/pro-referendum result.

Students have a further choice

For students, who are allowed to register to vote both at their home address and at their address when at university, there is also a useful tool, provided by the Guardian, which helps to understand whether their vote will be more effective at home or at university?

Students intending to use their vote in their university town/city and consulting tactical voting sites should not use the university’s postcode, but the one for where they actually live while there.

Voter Registration and Turnout

Registration and turnout will be crucial, particularly among the younger voters who are more likely to be pro-EU/pro-Referendum.

Don’t forget that younger voters aren’t just those at university. Around 45% go to university, so 55% don’t, and the category “younger voter” covers people aged 18 to 34, many of whom will have moved as they leave school, go through college/university, start work…

The Electoral Commission, Registering the Missing Millions, estimates that 1 in 3 18-34 year-olds (some 5 million people) aren’t even registered to vote, and that figure doesn’t include those who haven’t re-registered because they’ve moved since the last time they voted. All in all, some 9.4 million are either not registered or not correctly registered.

Fact checking

Apart from making sure that your vote is cast in favour of what is Best for the UK, the facts used by the various political parties and their candidates need to be subjected to a rigorous “reality check”.

A good place to start is to look up the claim or rebuttal on FullFact. This is a fact checking site set up in 2010, now run as a charitable organisation, which has been consistently reliable in checking out statements made by politicians, pundits and the media.

The Bottom Line – this not the time for a protest vote

If you want your vote to count towards an outcome that is in the Best Interest of the UK, you need to VOTE and vote in the best place (if you have a choice) for the best candidate.

Whatever you do, you need to vote pragmatically, even if that means holding your nose and then never admitting that you didn’t vote for your usual allegiance.

If you don’t, and a pro-Brexit authoritarian government gets back into No. 10, will you be OK with the fact that you didn’t do all you could to stop the UK’s and future generations’ rights being flushed down the drain?

By any expert assessment the deal that is Best for the UK is the one it already has as a member of the EU!

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Whether you can donate right now or not (if you can, please click on the image above to do so), please spread the word among your contacts and on social media. Have you got a fiver or so you could spare for us? Could you spare us a fiver next month, the month after…?

Apart from the sheer time and effort involved in what we do, much of it costs money that we can’t spend without your financial support.

We follow matters as they develop. They’re always volatile, and it may mean that we suspend days’ or weeks’ worth of work to study and report on the latest news.

There’s still a long way to go (again) and there are no guarantees about what the outcome will be. The only thing that’s certain is that if we stop trying we will lose.

To help protect our fundamental rights, and support Parliament in safeguarding them, please support The People’s Challenge so that the campaign to make your voice heard can continue.

Please share this article as widely as you can, and thank you again for your support.

You can follow us via our blog, on Twitter @PeoplesChalleng and our Facebook page.

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

Posted in Article 50 negotiations, Brexit, Democracy, GE2019, Parliamentary Sovereignty, Political Integrity, The Millions in the Margins, What is Best for the UK? | Tagged Democracy, GE2019, Parliamentary Sovereignty, Political Integrity, What is Best for the UK? | 1 Comment

Despite, or perhaps because of, the election result the work continues at The People’s Challenge.

Posted on December 23, 2019 by Grahame Pigney

The election result was a brutal and salutary lesson for everybody who values the rights and benefits we have accumulated over the past 40 years, together with the moves in the last few months towards a system of democracy where Parliament has the powers to hold the government to account and to ensure, with individuals and the judiciary, that the government obeys the rule of law.

The Queen’s Speech and much of what is coming from the Government shows that we were right to be concerned about Boris Johnson’s plans to rebalance power between government, parliament and the judiciary. Let’s not forget that these are the “three legs” of the UK’s system of democracy, admired and much-imitated throughout the world.

It appears that this “rebalancing” will reduce parliament’s ability to supervise and hold to account the government, as well as reducing the right of individuals to challenge the government’s actions via the courts.

Although the fight to keep the UK in the EU looks to be lost, the fight to preserve the fundamental rights conferred on UK citizens by EU membership, and to protect Parliamentary sovereignty, is about to begin again.

The Withdrawal Agreement only provides partial protection for UK citizens in EU27 states, to a lesser extent for UK citizens working cross-border into EU27 countries, and for UK citizens resident in the UK, no protection at all.

We don’t yet know whether these limited protections will carry on for even the lifetime of this government.

A lot depends on your status – retired, student, working, resident with dependant family or somebody who is potentially dependant on their family, do you work cross-border or as a posted worker?

Then there are those of you who own property or a business in the EU27 but aren’t resident there. Those of you who reside in an EU27 state, with qualifying working years in other EU27 states but not the one where you currently reside.

Not forgetting UK citizens living in the EU27 who have a non-UK spouse or children. If you decide to return to the UK, will your spouse/children be allowed to return with you?

There are so many more very diverse examples…

Many of the rights and procedures are still ill-defined, not forgetting that a No-Deal exit on 31st Dec 2020 looks increasingly likely in the wake of the election. If that happens, then how much more will be back in the melting pot?

There are compelling arguments to say that those UK citizens who have exercised their EU citizenship rights in some significant manner, not just those who happen to reside in an EU27 state currently, should be granted those rights on a continuing basis after Brexit.

There are also attractive arguments about other UK citizens being able to retain some sort of “associate” EU citizenship.

This is a far more complicated question. It requires co-operation between the UK and the EU on practical matters such as health care and pensions. It also requires political will and reciprocity of rights. In the past, the Govt. has rejected such a status, refusing to countenance EU membership “by stealth”.

We at https://ThePeoplesChallenge.org/ will be taking a little time to assess what all this means, including what has been written into and out of the revised Withdrawal Agreement Bill.

Whatever happens, we will be back to campaign and hold the UK Government and the EU27 to account to protect UK citizens’ fundamental citizenship rights, the only limiting factor will be, as it was in 2016, the money needed to brief and engage the legal expertise required to win these arguments.

In 2016 we mitigated the cost of fighting our corner by recruiting legal professionals at a substantial discount to the rates charged by the government’s lawyers. This time we will have to go even further and be more forensic and detailed in the briefs we prepare for the lawyers we need to engage in the UK and the EU27 states.

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This is how we are funded, we receive nothing from the big campaign groups, business, philanthropic bodies, political parties…

To help protect our fundamental rights, and support Parliament in safeguarding them, please support The People’s Challenge, so we can continue to help make your voice heard.

There’s still a way to go (despite the repeated ”fixed” deadlines) and there are no guarantees about the outcome. The only thing that’s certain is that if we stop trying, we will fail.

As we all know, without organisers there can be no effective campaign, without a client there can be no legal/judicial challenge.

Please share this article as widely as you can, and thank you again for your support.

You can follow us via our blog, on Twitter @PeoplesChalleng and our Facebook page.

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

Posted in Brexit, Democracy, The Millions in the Margins, The People's Challenge, What Is Best For Our Country | Tagged Democracy, Political Integrity, The Millions in the Margins, What Is Best For Our Country | Leave a comment

100 years of the Liberals & Labour snapping and snarling at each other while the Tories run away with the General Election!

Posted on December 9, 2019 by Grahame Pigney

Over the past months the Liberals (Liberal Democrats) and Labour have been fighting over who has the better qualifications to oppose the Tories.

Both parties can reasonably campaign based on their inherent, long-standing principles. What is unconscionable is for the parties, or their leaders, to put those principles ahead of what is Best for the UK: “In Putney, Labour and the Lib Dems are canvassing hard. Without tactical voting here and elsewhere, both will lose out”.

This is not a new phenomenon. Back in 1912 C P Scott (Liberal politician 1895-1906, journalist and Manchester Guardian Editor 1872 to 1929) said, “While Liberalism and Labour are snapping and snarling at each other the Conservative dog may run away with the bone,”

After more than a century, it is long past time to stop that happening again.

As we stand now, the bone is winning the General Election. While it is almost certain that none of the current opposition parties will win a clear majority, it is even clearer that only one stands a chance of mustering a majority among those opposition parties.

While it is understandable that Labour, by far the largest in terms of voters and MPs, believe that they should lead the opposition, it is not at all clear why the Leader of the Liberal Democrats is trying to dictate who Labour party members should elect as Labour Leader.

All this is despite the common ground the Liberal Democrats and Labour share, and should be building on. They have shared this common ground since the beginning of the 20^th century. In 1923 C. P. Scott wrote, “Between Liberalism and Labour there are deep natural affinities, but for many a long day each is likely to pursue its separate path.”

The Liberals (Liberal Democrats) have not formed even a minority government since 1910, and of the eight Labour governments since then, four have relied on Liberal support.

Since 1910 the Tories have formed nine governments with just 2 relying on minority party support (Liberal Democrat coalition 2010-2015 and DUP supply/confidence support 2017-2019). The other minority Tory government was ousted in the 1997 General Election.

Given the implied threats in the Tory manifesto to our fundamental rights, the independence of our judicial system and Parliament’s sovereignty, we should be taking a progressive and pragmatic view of who to vote for on Thursday.

If you have any doubt about the threat posed, look at page 47-48 of the Tory manifesto: Repeal of the Fixed Term Parliament Act (handing back to the Prime Minister the power to dissolve Parliament), implementing Voter Id in elections and “stop the harvesting of postal votes”, both of which will see people in the poorest groups of society, together with the elderly, ethnic minorities and the homeless, threatened with being disenfranchised.

There are also, as yet vague, proposals in the Tory manifesto to examine “the relationship between Government, Parliament and the courts” and “ensure that judicial review is available to protect the rights of the individuals against an overbearing state, while ensuring that it is not abused to conduct politics by another means or to create needless delays”.

Clearly the government hasn’t enjoyed some recent appearances in the Supreme Court where it was judged to have fallen foul of the law. It’s on a par with mutterings about reviewing Channel 4’s license after the melting ice substituted for Boris Johnson.

Bear in mind that these manifesto commitments need to be considered in the context of a party which, while in government, has sought to: ignore the rule of law; reduce the status of UK citizens; subvert the authority of Parliament and its ability to hold the government to account, and repeatedly failed to deliver on its promises to UK citizens who happen to live overseas.

This election isn’t just about Brexit, or even the NHS or social care, important as those issues undoubtedly are. It is also about what sort of socially responsible, democratically accountable system we want for our country and our children.

If the opposition parties are failing to work on the basis of what is Best for the UK, it is up to the electorate to point this out to them by voting to stop the election of an authoritarian government with an established track record of attempting to reduce our fundamental rights and diminish the UK’s Parliament.

We shouldn’t let some criticism, however genuine and justified, of Labour and Lib-Dem policies, positions, etc… get in the way of electing a Parliament that works for the Best Interests of the UK.

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This is how we are funded, we receive nothing from the big campaign groups, business, philanthropic bodies, political parties…

We follow matters as they develop. They’re always volatile, and in these times of Brexit extensions and now a General Election it means that days’ or weeks’ worth of work has to be set aside or even lost completely as the situation changes.

To help protect our fundamental rights, and support Parliament in safeguarding them, please support The People’s Challenge, so we can continue to help make your voice heard.

There’s still a long way to go (despite the repeated ”fixed” deadlines) and there are no guarantees about the outcome. The only thing that’s certain is that if we stop trying, we will fail.

As we all know, without organisers there can be no effective campaign, without a client there can be no legal/judicial challenge.

Please share this article as widely as you can, and thank you again for your support.

You can follow us via our blog, on Twitter @PeoplesChalleng and our Facebook page.

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

Posted in Brexit, Democracy, GE2019, Parliamentary Sovereignty, Political Integrity, What is Best for the UK? | Tagged Democracy, GE2019, Political Integrity, What is Best for the UK? | Leave a comment

Andrew Neil’s challenge to Boris Johnson – “Questions of Trust”, an interview “Oven-ready, as Mr Johnson likes to say”

Posted on December 5, 2019 by Grahame Pigney

The BBC’s Andrew Neil has issued a challenge to Conservative leader Boris Johnson to take part in a half-hour general election interview with him.

Boris Johnson is the only one of the main party leaders not to agree to face a half-hour, prime-time BBC One grilling by Andrew Neil.

As is his want Boris Johnson denies claims he is avoiding scrutiny.

Andrew Neil addressed Boris Johnson directly at the end of his fourth leader interview at this election, with Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage.

“And that concludes our fourth leaders’ interview for the general election of 2019. There is, of course, still one to be done. Boris Johnson. The prime minister.

“We have been asking him for weeks now to give us a date, a time, a venue. As of now, none has been forthcoming.

“No broadcaster can compel a politician to be interviewed.

“But leaders’ interviews have been a key part of the BBC’s prime-time election coverage for decades. We do them, on your behalf, to scrutinise and hold to account those who would govern us. That is democracy.

“We have always proceeded in good faith that the leaders would participate. And in every election they have. All of them. Until this one.

“It is not too late. We have an interview prepared. Oven-ready, as Mr Johnson likes to say.

“The theme running through our questions is trust – and why at so many times in his career, in politics and journalism, critics and sometimes even those close to him have deemed him to be untrustworthy.

“It is, of course, relevant to what he is promising us all now.

“Can he be trusted to deliver 50,000 more nurses when almost 20,000 in his numbers are already working for the NHS?

“He promises 40 new hospitals. But only six are scheduled to be built by 2025. Can he be believed when he claims another 34 will be built in the five years after that?

“Can he be trusted to fund the NHS properly when he uses a cash figure of an extra £34bn? After inflation the additional money promised amounts to £20bn.

“He vows that the NHS will not be on the table in any trade talks with America.

“But he vowed to the DUP, his Unionist allies in Northern Ireland, that there would never be a border down the Irish Sea. That is as important to the DUP as the NHS is to the rest of us. It is a vow his Brexit deal would seem to break.

“Now he tells us he’s always been an opponent of austerity. We would ask him for evidence of that.

“And we would want to know why an opponent of austerity would bake so much of it into their future spending plans.

“We would ask why, as with the proposed increase in police numbers, so many of his promises only take us back to the future. Back to where we were before austerity began.

“Social care is an issue of growing concern. On the steps of Downing Street in July he said he’d prepared a plan for social care. We’d ask him why that plan is not in his manifesto.

“Questions of trust. Questions we’d like to put to Mr Johnson so you can hear his replies. But we can’t. Because he won’t sit down with us.

“There is no law, no Supreme Court ruling that can force Mr Johnson to participate in a BBC leaders’ interview.

“But the prime minister of our nation will, at times, have to stand up to President Trump, President Putin, President Xi of China. So it was surely not expecting too much that he spend half an hour standing up to me.

“Good night.”

Such a refusal to submit to unscripted public scrutiny is unprecedented.

What are we to infer from this avoidance of public scrutiny and accountability?

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon, Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage have all faced a grilling by Mr Neil.

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This is how we are funded, we receive nothing from the big campaign groups, business, philanthropic bodies, political parties…

To help protect our fundamental rights, and support Parliament in safeguarding them, please support The People’s Challenge, so we can continue to help make your voice heard.

There’s still a long way to go (despite the repeated ”fixed” deadlines) and there are no guarantees about the outcome. The only thing that’s certain is that if we stop trying, we will fail.

As we all know, without organisers there can be no effective campaign, without a client there can be no legal/judicial challenge.

Please share this article as widely as you can, and thank you again for your support.

You can follow us via our blog, on Twitter @PeoplesChalleng and our Facebook page.

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

Posted in Brexit, Democracy, Political Integrity, What is Best for the UK? | Tagged Democracy, Political Integrity, What is Best for the UK? | Leave a comment

Pie crust promises – more evidence, if more is needed, that calling a General Election is just a way to ensure a No-Deal Brexit in 2020!

Posted on November 5, 2019 by Grahame Pigney

At a lobby briefing this morning the prime minister’s spokesman ruled out MPs being given a vote on whether or not to request an extension to the Brexit transition, which is due to finish at the end of next year.

The government is also ruling out an extension, even though many believe one will be necessary.

The spokesman told journalists:

The answer to that is a simple no. We aren’t extending the implementation period. There is no reason whatsoever why we will not secure a deal by that date. Both the UK and the EU are committed to reaching a trade agreement by that date and that is what we are going to do.

David Gauke, one of the 21 Tories who had the whip removed over Brexit, says, without an extension, the UK will face a No-Deal in December 2020.

Just 2 weeks ago Robert Buckland, David Gauke’s successor as Justice Secretary, gave MPs a clear commitment.

David Gauke

✔@DavidGauke

It was a clear promise. As @RobertBuckland said ‘Parliament has a legitimate role to play’. I agree.

Looks like the Conservative message is “we’ll be out on WTO terms by 2021”. I have to say – that is reckless. https://twitter.com/robpowellnews/status/1191680447765524487 …

Rob Powell@robpowellnews

NEW: PM’s Official Spokesperson confirms MPs will NOT be given a vote on whether to extend the transition period. That’s despite what @RobertBuckland said to @DavidGauke on Oct 22 in the House

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12:53 PM – Nov 5, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

Nick Boles, another MP who left the Tory party over Brexit, also claims this decision means Johnson is planning a no-deal Brexit at the end of next year. He tabled an amendment to the withdrawal agreement bill that would have guaranteed MPs a vote on extending the transition.

Nick Boles MP

✔@NickBoles

One of the main reasons Cummings refused to allow the Brexit bill to go through Parliament was that the Commons would have passed my amendment to make an extension to the transition the default unless MPs decided otherwise. Johnson wants to force through a WTO Brexit next Dec. https://twitter.com/robpowellnews/status/1191680447765524487 …

Rob Powell@robpowellnews

NEW: PM’s Official Spokesperson confirms MPs will NOT be given a vote on whether to extend the transition period. That’s despite what @RobertBuckland said to @DavidGauke on Oct 22 in the House

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1:08 PM – Nov 5, 2019

Twitter Ads info and privacy

If the Tory party does win a majority, a key question will be whether there are enough Tory MPs who will side with the opposition to force through a Boles-style amendment.

Although Nick Boles says that No 10 ruling out an extension to the transition means Johnson is planning a no-deal Brexit, perhaps Boris Johnson is just making a promise now that he has no intention of keeping – as he did with his promise not to agree to customs controls down the Irish Sea and his “do or die” pledge not to request a Brexit extension.

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We value your support, apart from the sheer time and effort involved, much of what we do costs money that we can only afford to spend with the financial support of people like you.

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 a contribution (please click on the image above) 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 best for our country: what is 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 support us 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.

You can follow us via our blog, on Twitter @PeoplesChalleng and our Facebook page.

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

Posted in Brexit | 1 Comment

How do you make sure your vote counts in this General Election? Make sure you Register and Vote!

Posted on November 3, 2019 by Grahame Pigney

First and foremost make sure you are registered to vote, remember:
- Students are entitled to register at both their university address and their home address;
- If you have moved, or changed your name or nationality since you last registered, you need to register again;
- You can register to vote by following this link and there are details of the deadlines for registering.
Secondly, make sure you vote.
If on polling day you won’t be where you are registered, make sure you have a postal or proxy vote.

There are arguments for and against postal and proxy votes.

Voting by Post

With a postal vote there are delays in sending you the papers. They can’t be sent out until after the list of candidates has been finalised (14th November closing date for nominations), and then the ballot papers have to be printed. The papers must be sent back so that they arrive by the close of polling. More information about the closing dates for applications can be found on the Electoral Commissions site here.

N.B. It may be possible to scan and email your application but check with the electoral services team at your local council to find out, you can search for the contact details here.

You have no control over the postal system which may delay you getting the papers and/or getting them back in time.

You can find more details online at the Electoral Commissions site – How to cast your vote – voting by post.

Voting by Proxy

With a proxy vote you need a trusted person to vote on your behalf.

You can register a proxy vote up until 5pm 4th December, but you have to make the application by post. The proxy vote authorisation is sent to your nominated proxy by post. More information about the closing dates for applications can be found on the Electoral Commissions site here .

N.B. It may be possible to scan and email your application but check with the electoral services team at your local council to find out, you can search for the contact details here.

When you apply for a proxy vote you must provide a reason. You can find more details online at the Electoral Commissions site – How to cast your vote – voting by proxy

The person you wish to appoint as your proxy can only act as proxy if they are 18 or over, and are registered to vote, and can get to your polling station, and are eligible to vote in the General Election. A person cannot be a proxy for more than two people at any one election or referendum, unless they are a close relative (spouse, civil partner, parent, grandparent, brother, sister, child or grandchild). The person doesn’’t need to be registered to vote in your constituency.

Your proxy must go to your local polling station to vote. Your proxy will be sent a proxy poll card, telling them where and when to vote. You must let your proxy know how you want them to vote on your behalf, for example, for which candidate or party.

If you do not have a friend or family member that you can ask to be your proxy, there is another option. Once you have decided which party you wish to support, you can contact the party’s local constituency office – a quick internet search will help you find the contact details. Contact the office and ask them to supply the details for somebody who would be prepared to be the proxy for you. The party constituency organisation has a vested interest in making sure that your vote is cast for them, so this a reliable alternative method.

Acting as a Proxy for another voter

It’s very simple to vote as someone’s proxy. You will be sent a special proxy poll card with details of where you should go to vote. Just tell the staff at the polling station that you are voting as a proxy and they will tell you what to do. Don’t forget to take your proxy poll card – this will make it easier for polling place staff to find the right ballot paper.

If I’m a student should I vote in my university constituency or my home constituency?

If you are a student registered at your university’s constituency and at your home constituency, you have a further choice to make – where will my vote be most effective?

Is your university’s constituency a marginal seat and your home constituency a safe seat, or vice-versa?

Tactical Voting

Tactical voting is not an exact science.

It depends on the result you want to achieve and the relative strengths of the parties in your constituency or constituencies:

Do you want to increase the number of pro-remain/leave MPs?
Do you want a particular party to form a government?
Do you want to stop a particular party from forming a government?

None of these things are simple binary options and, as with most things, there may be both intended and unintended consequences of the choices we make.

Whatever your purpose in voting tactically, you have to take a pragmatic view of what is possible in the constituency.

If you want to increase the number of pro-EU/pro-referendum MPs, there is no point in voting for your preferred party unless that will ensure that a pro-EU/pro-Referendum party will win in your constituency.

If you don’t want the Tories to form the next government, you need to vote for the party that has the best chance of beating them in your constituency.

This is where pragmatism as opposed to party loyalty plays a crucial part in your decision.

Even then, pro-Brexit votes being split between the Tories and the Brexit Party may help the pro-EU/pro-Referendum parties if the pro-EU/pro-Referendum candidates can concentrate their votes behind a single candidate in your constituency.

Conversely, splitting the pro-EU/pro-Referendum vote may unintentionally help the Tories or the Brexit Party.

But we may not know who is standing in which constituency until after the closing date for declaring candidates on 14^th November.

There are also some 60 MPs not standing again, plus a number who are standing as Independent (for example Dominic Grieve) against their former party, or standing for a new party in a new constituency, for example Chuka Umunna.

Especially in these cases, but in general in the current climate, all predictions are unreliable, especially about the future (for those who remember E F Schumacher).

Some tactical voting sites, such as Best for Britain’s Get Voting, make projections based on polling data, others, such as Tactical Vote , are based on the results of the 2017 General Election. Sometimes the results match, sometimes they don’t. There is no conclusive way of saying one approach is better than the other.

____________________________________________________

We value your support, apart from the sheer time and effort involved, much of what we do costs money that we can only afford to spend with the financial support of people like you.

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 support us 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.

You can follow us via our blog, on Twitter @PeoplesChalleng and our Facebook page.

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

Posted in Brexit, Democracy, Parliamentary Sovereignty, People's Challenge, Political Integrity, What Is Best For Our Country, What is Best for the UK? | Tagged Article 50 negotiations, Democracy, GE2019, Parliamentary Sovereignty, Political Integrity | 1 Comment

Is our hard won Brexit Flextension about to go up in flames as Boris Johnson tries to block Parliamentary scrutiny and debate once again?

Posted on October 29, 2019 by Grahame Pigney

Having been defeated 3 times in the Commons in his attempts to call a General Election, Boris Johnson is now going for a 4th attempt.

This time he is tabling an amendment to the Fixed Term Parliament Act for a General Election on 12^th December.

The Government has also tabled a complex business motion to limit the time available to debate the Bill and the amendments that can be made to it. All in order to rush it through with the minimum of scrutiny. Sound familiar?

The current EU (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill will be lost, unless specifically carried over to the new Parliament, and the work done to ensure there was time to analyse and debate it fully will have been wasted.

The hard-won 3-month Brexit “Flextension” will also be largely wasted.

If Parliament votes for an early General Election, there will be a 5-week campaign period leading up to the General Election.

The new Parliament will then be summoned by proclamation of the Queen in Council. Boris Johnson has promised that this will happen before 23^rd December. So there’ll be no problem there, will there?

Not forgetting that successful candidates in the General Election do not become MPs until the new Parliament has been summoned and they are sworn in as MPs.

There will need to be another Queen’s Speech (with its associated debate), the election of a new Speaker and the reconstitution of the various select committees.

Normally, and admittedly you can hardly call these times ‘normal’, Parliament would be in recess from about 20^th December until around 7^th January.

So it is quite conceivable that under these circumstances, the 3-month extension would only provide 3 weeks of Parliamentary time before the UK is up against the next deadline.

So instead of focusing on the greatest crisis the UK has faced since 1939 (or even on all that urgent fix-the-country business which was the excuse for proroguing Parliament and for the farcical last Queen’s Speech that HM had to deliver), vast amounts of time will be taken up with an election campaign.

A classic example of tribal party politics versus the national unity the country needs at least as much as it did in 1940.

____________________________________________________

We value your support, apart from the sheer time and effort involved, much of what we do costs money that we can only afford to spend with the financial support of people like you.

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 support us 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.

You can follow us via our blog, on Twitter @PeoplesChalleng and our Facebook page.

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

Posted in Article 50 negotiations, Brexit, Democracy, Parliamentary Sovereignty, Political Integrity, What is Best for the UK? | Tagged Democracy, GE2019, Parliamentary Sovereignty, People's Vote, Political Integrity | Leave a comment

Boris Johnson attempts to use up even more precious Parliamentary time. Why can’t the opposition parties see this?

Posted on October 28, 2019 by Grahame Pigney

So Boris Johnson said that Parliament has run its course, needed a new session and attempts to illegally prorogue it for 5 weeks. He is then slapped down by the Supreme Court but then prorogues it for an “acceptable” period.

All this wastes weeks of Parliamentary time.

He now says that Parliament has run its course and there needs to be a General Election.

A GE will waste 5 weeks or more of precious Parliamentary time and leave the Government in power but not subject to Parliamentary scrutiny.

Why can’t the LibDems and SNP not see that all the PM is doing is burning Parliamentary time so as to push the UK up against another deadline and bounce it into a Brexit deal which will impoverish the UK and its people ultimately leading to a catastrophic No-Deal Brexit?

____________________________________________________

We value your support, apart from the sheer time and effort involved, much of what we do costs money that we can only afford to spend with the financial support of people like you.

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 support us 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.

You can follow us via our blog, on Twitter @PeoplesChalleng and our Facebook page.

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

Posted in Brexit, Democracy, Parliamentary Sovereignty, Political Integrity, The Millions in the Margins, What is Best for the UK? | Tagged Article 50 negotiations, Democracy, Parliamentary Sovereignty, Political Integrity | Leave a comment

An open letter to M. Macron President de la Republique

Posted on October 24, 2019 by Grahame Pigney

This is the English Translation of the letter that I sent to M. Le President de La Republique, Emanuel Macron, on behalf of The People’s Challenge (original French is included below the English).

Mr President,

I’m writing you this open letter to express the views of a group of concerned UK citizens.

Media reports suggest that you are only inclined to grant a very short (15 day) extension to the Article 50 period, even though Boris Johnson’s letter, required by the law voted by Parliament, asked for an extension to 31^st January 2020.

This would have implications: refusal of a request from the UK’s Sovereign Parliament, an attempt by the EU to override the UK’s due constitutional process, it would also frustrate UK Parliamentarians’ ability and duty to ensure that the UK’s constitutional requirements are fulfilled.

The negotiations between the UK Gov. and the EU 27 have largely been carried out “in the tunnel”. That, combined with the enabling legislation the UK Gov. is proposing, demands that the UK ‘s sovereign Parliament has sufficient time to scrutinise very closely the bill that the Gov. is tabling.

That scrutiny has to include whether the bill complies with constitutional law, whether it complies with commitments to our friends in the EU27, and whether it protects, in law, the rights of UK citizens and residents at Brexit day and into the future.

To curtail this scrutiny, and thus the UK Parliament’s ability to comply with its constitutional requirements, would be seen by many, including UK citizens who are friends of the EU, as an unwarranted and unreasonable imposition by the EU on the Parliament and people of the UK.

Mr President, I share your concern about what is going on in the UK. We are by no means alone, you and I, many others are also seriously worried. But your, mine and their feelings don’t change the situation.

I would ask you therefore to support a long extension of the Article 50 process so that the UK’s Parliament and people can reflect on the now better-known consequences of Brexit. This will also enable the EU to move forward with its own priorities without the distraction of UK domestic politics.

Hopefully this will lead to a resolution of the current Brexit crisis which is better for both the UK and the EU.

Yours,

Grahame Pigney

The People’s Challenge

M. le Président,

je me permets de vous écrire cette lettre ouverte pour exprimer les sentiments d’un groupe de citoyens UE inquiets.

Les médias nous proposent la possibilité que votre inclination est de donner au RU une très petite (15 jours ?) extension à la notification Article 50, même si la lettre de Boris Johnson, requise par la loi votée par le Parlement du RU, a demandé une extension au 1er janvier 2020.

Cette action engendrerait plusieurs conséquences : un refus d’une demande du Parlement souverain du RU, un essai par le UE de s’imposer sur ce Parlement souverain, et une frustration de son devoir et de son droit de satisfaire correctement les règles constitutionnelles du RU.

Les négociations entre le gouvernement du RU et les EU27 ont procédées largement « dans le noir ». Avec ceci, et la législation proposée par le gouvernement pour régulariser la situation en RU, il faut absolument que le Parlement souverain du RU ait le temps qu’il faut pour examiner minutieusement le projet de loi du gouvernement.

Cet examen doit comprendre : si le projet de loi est conforme à la loi constitutionnelle, à nos obligations à nos amis de l’UE, s’il protège dans la loi, les droits des citoyens et résidents du RU au moment du Brexit et pour l’avenir.

Couper court à cet examen, et donc frustrer le droit et devoir du Parlement d’honorer son rôle constitutionnel, paraitrait a beaucoup de gens, citoyens RU bons amis de l’UE inclus, une imposition ni nécessaire et ni raisonnable par l’UE sur le Parlement et le peuple du RU.

Vous avez, monsieur le président, ma sympathie quand a la consternation a ce qui se passe au RU. Vous et moi, ainsi que beaucoup d’autres, partageons cette frustration. Mais nos sentiments, tant les miens que les vôtres ne changeant pas la réalité de la situation.

Je vous demande donc de favoriser une longue extension à la notification Article 50, pour que le Parlement du RU puisse réfléchir les conséquences du Brexit qui sont maintenant plus claires.

Ceci permettrait aussi au UE d’avancer ses autres priorités sans la distraction de la politique interne du RU.

Dans l’espérance que ceci amènera à une résolution de la crise Brexit du moment et à un avenir plus propice pour tous les citoyens européens.

Vous avez mes salutations distingues,

Grahame Pigney

The People’s Challenge

____________________________________________________

We value your support, apart from the sheer time and effort involved, much of what we do costs money that we can only afford to spend with the financial support of people like you.

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 support us 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.

You can follow us via our blog, on Twitter @PeoplesChalleng and our Facebook page.

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

Posted in Article 50 negotiations, Brexit, Parliamentary Sovereignty, People's Challenge, The Millions in the Margins | Tagged Article 50, Parliamentary Sovereignty, The People's Challenge | Leave a comment

The People's Challenge

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Making your vote count is not just about registering and voting. Your vote has to help ensure that we get, in THIS election, what is Best for the UK!

Tactical Voting – intended and unintended consequences

Students have a further choice

Voter Registration and Turnout

Fact checking

The Bottom Line – this not the time for a protest vote

Despite, or perhaps because of, the election result the work continues at The People’s Challenge.

100 years of the Liberals & Labour snapping and snarling at each other while the Tories run away with the General Election!

Andrew Neil’s challenge to Boris Johnson – “Questions of Trust”, an interview “Oven-ready, as Mr Johnson likes to say”

Pie crust promises – more evidence, if more is needed, that calling a General Election is just a way to ensure a No-Deal Brexit in 2020!

At a lobby briefing this morning the prime minister’s spokesman ruled out MPs being given a vote on whether or not to request an extension to the Brexit transition, which is due to finish at the end of next year.

How do you make sure your vote counts in this General Election? Make sure you Register and Vote!

Voting by Post

Voting by Proxy

Acting as a Proxy for another voter

If I’m a student should I vote in my university constituency or my home constituency?

Tactical Voting

Is our hard won Brexit Flextension about to go up in flames as Boris Johnson tries to block Parliamentary scrutiny and debate once again?

Boris Johnson attempts to use up even more precious Parliamentary time. Why can’t the opposition parties see this?

An open letter to M. Macron President de la Republique

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