‘If you care about me then oppose Brexit’, young people will be urged to tell older relatives in a new Remain campaign aimed at sabotaging Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union (EU).
Organisers hope the initiative — which was conceived with input from figures including anti-Brexit Labour peer Lord Adonis — will see millennials telephone their parents and grandparents en masse and result in older voters feeling pressured into keeping Britain chained to Brussels, The Times reports.
The campaign will be fronted by self-described “Brexit saboteur” and full-time anti-Brexit campaigner Madeleina Kay, whose blog features pictures of the activist posing with pro-EU figures and politicians including Bob Geldof, Eddie Izzard, and Nick Clegg.
“Older people have benefited from EU membership their entire lifetimes and they’re now taking that away from young people who don’t want Brexit, which seems a bit unfair,” said Kay.
The Sheffield-based activist, who brands herself a writer and artist, has published dozens of pro-EU cartoons, with illustrations of public figures on both sides of the debate — including one which depicts Queen Elizabeth II wearing a dress emblazoned with the phrases ‘F*** BREXIT’ and ‘TORIES OUT’.
A claimed “horrific rise in race hate crime” during the referendum campaign prompted Kay to write, illustrate, and self-publish a children’s book about the migrant crisis, which she says “features LGBT+ and multi-racial characters” and “aims to teach compassion and addresses diversity in the widest possible sense”.
During the new counter-Brexit campaign, Kay will seek to mobilise young people to lecture older relatives on the “economic dangers of Brexit”, alongside YouTuber and law graduate Femi Oluwole.
“The main angle that we’re going for is ‘we didn’t vote for this’,” said the 27-year-old former Nottingham University student. “You as our parents and our grandparents, you care about us, we know you do. Look after us, please.
“We’re going to be the ones looking for a job in a post-Brexit environment. If you care about us, please respect our values, our wishes, our will. It’s not an antagonised young versus old thing, it’s ‘you love us, do this for us please’,” added Oluwole.
While much of the content on his YouTube channel is dedicated to attacking Brexit, the law graduate has also made videos to share his views on other topics.
In one, which is entitled “Terrorism: Should we fear Muslims?”, Oluwole dismisses the concerns of people in the U.S. and Europe over Islamic terror attacks as “bigotry”, claiming that the body count of Islamist atrocities in the West is not high enough to ‘turn it Islamic’.
In addition, he argued that it is irrational to worry about how many Muslims want to kill unbelievers because “there are a lot of extreme views on the left regarding Trump … but they don’t act on it”.
While planning for the campaign is still at an early stage, The Times reports that fundraising efforts are being led by Félix Marquardt, a communications adviser, former hip-hop producer, and convert to Islam who reportedly “throws the best parties in Davos” — the Swiss town known for its gatherings of the global elite — according to Vanity Fair.