The youth wing of the imploding People’s Vote campaign has launched its own independent “surgical” tactical vote drive across the country after breaking away from the umbrella organisation.
Voters in 17 key marginals with high student populations and significant proportions of young voters will be targeted by the For our Future’s Sake (FFS) group.
On Saturday the campaign will launch in the university town of Canterbury which was unexpectedly snatched from the Tories by Labour’s Rosie Duffield in 2017. Duffield, a pro-second referendum MP, has a razor thin majority of 187.
Duffield said young people would “bear the brunt” of Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal and was “fighting as hard as I can to prevent it from coming to pass”.
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On Sunday FFS will step up moves to oust environment secretary Theresa Villiers, a leading Brexiteer, in the London seat of Chipping Barnet. Labour’s Emma Whysall is hoping to overturn the Tory majority of 353.
Rosie McKenna, the FFS mobilisation chief, said students and young people could “decide the future of the UK” at the election.
“Brexit will massively impact all of our lives, so we must stand up now and avert this catastrophe before it happens. Working with students and Students’ Unions all over the UK, FFS will support you to make a difference: for all our futures’ sake.”
FFS has based its targets on recent polling, tactical voting sites and the 2017 election results.
The campaign for a second referendum was thrown into chaos the Sunday before the election was called when the Roland Rudd, one the leaders of the People’s Vote organisation, tried to fire its director James McGrory and communications director Tom Baldwin. Staff walked out in opposition to the move.
People’s Vote, minus two of the nine of the organisations which founded it, will itself launch a campaign across the country today in 21 seats.
A spokesperson said: “Record donations mean we can continue to fund crucial campaigning work and shows that large swathes of people are committed to defeating Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit, through a final say referendum.
“The commitment of grassroots campaigners is instrumental to the success of the campaign and we are delighted to see so many mobilised groups working together in a day of coordinated action.”
The group said it had raised over half a million pounds during the three weeks since it was consumed by infighting, a figure it claimed was a record for that period of time.