Student groups with a million members back call for second Brexit referendum

In a letter, student representatives argue Brexit could have a disastrous impact on young people's future

An anti-brexit campaigner holds up a placard during a protest outside the Houses of Parliament (Getty)

Student organisations with close to a million members have joined forces and written to MPs demanding a referendum on a final Brexit deal.

Representatives from unions at 60 of the country’s universities and colleges, claiming to represent “just under one million students” across the UK, are calling on MPs to back a “people’s vote” on a final Brexit deal, citing fears that Brexit could have a disastrous impact on their future prospects.

In the letter, elected student representatives say they believe “the European Union has been a force for good for UK society”, but that they accepted the result of the June 2016 referendum.

But the letter said “the world is a different place to 2016” and that Brexiteers did not keep their campaign promises, with details about a post-Brexit UK only emerging now.

It also argues that large numbers of young people who were too young to vote during the referendum in 2016 need to have a say “on the biggest issue affecting their future”.

The joint letter was organised by For our Future’s Sake (FFS), a campaign led by students and young people across the UK “who have decided to stand up and be counted” and who believe that they will be better served by staying in the European Union.

Previous research from the London School of Economics has suggested that turnout among young people at the referendum in June 2016 was around 64 per cent in the 18-24 age group, while pollsters said around 70 per cent voted to remain in the referendum.

Ellie Keiller, president of the University of Birmingham Students’ Guild, told The Independent: “Given the fact that 750,000 young people turn 18 every year, it is only fair that they get a say on this. It is they who will have to live with the effects of any Brexit deal the longest.

“I have signed this letter because I want the whole of the UK – including young people – to have a say on the final deal, but at least this time we will know what we are voting for. This is about ensuring an open and fair democracy. We are only asking for an equal say with true information.

“For all these reasons, I am calling on MPs in Birmingham – the youngest city in Europe – to get behind the letter and call for a vote on the final deal.”

Amatey Doku, deputy president of the National Union of Students (NUS), told The Observer: “When more than 120 elected student officers, representing nearly a million young people, call for something with one clear voice, they need to be listened to.”

Mr Doku said the NUS was calling for a people’s vote on the Brexit deal, adding that young people “cannot see how the government can deliver a Brexit deal that works for them”.

Responding to the students’ letter, Dominic Shellard, vice-chancellor of De Montfort University in Leicester, tweeted: “The cabinet is at war over two custom union options the EU is never going to accept in a million years. We’re 10 months away from leaving the EU with no plan whatsoever. I’m with the students #PeoplesVote.”

Amanda Chetwynd-Cowieson, student mobilisation co-ordinator at FFS, told Sky News: “The signatories of this letter are elected representatives who represent the best interest of their members and they have all signed up to the fact that they think their members are going to be better served by having a people’s vote on the terms of the Brexit deal. They have a mandate to do this and many of them have pro-Remain policy at their unions.”

But Tom Harwood, the former leader of the Vote Leave student wing, disagrees. He described the campaign as “farcical” and said this was led by “100 people from the NUS who are very upset the referendum result didn’t go the way they wanted it to go and so they want to have another go”.

The letter comes after Labour veteran Peter Mandelson said the decision on how the UK leaves the EU will have to “go back to the people”.

Last month, Labour’s leader in the European Parliament, Richard Corbett, said demand for a second referendum on the final Brexit deal was “growing” as the damaging impact of leaving the EU was becoming clearer.

John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, previously said Labour had not ruled out a second referendum, or “any form of democratic engagement” on Brexit – though he said his preference was for a general election.

Labour has so far shied away from backing another referendum on the final Brexit vote.

The government insists that if the final deal is voted down by the UK Parliament then it will take Britain out of the EU without a deal and quit the bloc on default World Trade Organisation terms – which practically all economists agree would be the most damaging Brexit scenario.