An strong campaign for the UK to remain in the EU:
Our Future; Our Choice
Young people's voices must be heard on Brexit.
In the autumn, a decision will be made as to whether or not the deal to leave the EU - negotiated by Theresa May’s government - is good enough for this country. At OFOC, we believe the voices of young people should be heard. We agree that politicians need to focus on the other issues facing this country - an NHS limping from crisis to crisis, social mobility grinding to a halt and an increasingly expensive education system - but they cannot do this while Brexit threatens to harm the very people these crises affect.
We believe that there is no good Brexit deal for young people.
Brexit means less opportunities, a tougher job market and fewer rights for young people.
Our Future Our Choice is committed to a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal.
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Manifesto
Our campaign will seek to make three main arguments on why stopping Brexit is the only good deal, both for young people and for the country:
Deprivation of opportunities
Our generation is simply asking for the same opportunities that older generations have had.
Our European identity is the only one most of us have ever known. Many of us have been fortunate enough to travel around Europe, to work in Berlin, Frankfurt, Paris hassle free. All of us, so far, have enjoyed the right to do so. Many have met loved ones abroad, and settled either here or there. Every young German, Frenchman, Spaniard, and Italian will continue to enjoy the ability to live, work, and love across an entire continent, and to continue to enjoy their European identity. Our parents and grandparents, for the last forty years, have enjoyed the same opportunities - it is only younger Brits, who desire these opportunities the most, who are to be deprived of them.
Our generation wants the opportunity to lead in the world, to write history - not just read it. We want to solve the problems we care about, like climate change, cooperating hand in hand with our most important friends and allies on the continent.
We fear Brexit will deprive us of these opportunities - to be the engaged, outward looking, Great European Britain that we know we want to be.
Young people do not want Brexit
73% of young people voted to Remain. We are overwhelmingly pro-EU, and yet our country is continuing on its current isolationist path regardless. Our generation are going to have to live with the consequences of a disastrous Brexit which we do not want.
To be sure, the youth vote is worth just as much as anybody else’s. We are not campaigning to disenfranchise anyone, and we wholeheartedly support British parliamentary democracy. But this is an issue which demands generational sensitivity, and we will remind older generations that there will be a time when our generation ages. We will soon confront the reality of what we have been left, and if we do not like it we will simply reverse it. If it is a soft Brexit, which represents nothing but a minor and ironic loss of sovereignty, then we will return to our seat at the table. If it is a hard Brexit, we will be so furious with the wanton destruction inflicted on us that we will knock down any and all of the barriers imposed between us and Europe.
Huge distraction from the real issues
As Calum sets out in his Message to Westminster, Britain does not have the time or energy to cope with the demands of Brexit. While hundreds of talented officials line the halls of the DExEU department, our country struggles to cope with the rising inequality and crippling social crises which demand its urgent attention.
Our country is plagued by several social and economic crises - crises which pushed some into voting leave in the first place. We need to fix an NHS which is spluttering from crisis to crisis, to fix the housing market, to give our public services the technological overhaul, investment, and money that they need. We need much better provision of non-university post-16 education. We need a program to deliver prosperity to the communities and towns left out from the prosperity of the last two decades. We need a program to counter pernicious regional inequality, with much better incentives for businesses to operate in more deprived areas. But we cannot realistically achieve this while Brexit diverts precious attention and resources away from the issues which really matter.
For these reasons, OFOC believes we need a People's Vote on the final Brexit deal. OFOC respects the result of the referendum in 2016. But democracy did not stop two years ago. Since then, new facts have emerged which demand a reevaluation of whether or not the Brexit Britain voted for in 2016 is the one they are going to get. Mayhem on the Irish border, companies and talented Europeans leaving, and a poor, isolated, Britain emerging. Nobody voted to make our country poorer and less secure than before. And so when the government's deal returns to Parliament in the Autumn, the only people capable of deciding whether or not that deal is good enough for that country is the people.
Lara Spirit, Femi Oluwole, Will Dry, and Calum Millbank-Murphy - Co-Founders of Our Future, Our Choice
