Crowdfunding campaign raises over £27,000 to prosecute Boris Johnson and other 'dishonest Brexit politicians'
It claims the Leave campaign was 'built on ignorance and emotion, not evidence'
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Your support makes all the difference.A crowdfunding page which aims to prosecute “dishonest Brexit politicians”, including Boris Johnson, and prevent Brexit from occurring has received over £27,000 in donations.
The page has been set up by #BrexitJustice and hopes to “raise £100,000 minimum”, but acknowledges it is “going to need a war chest.”
The campaign intends to “prosecute vote leave leaders based upon fraud, misconduct in public office, undue influence and, possibly, inciting racial hatred”.
It also hopes to “fund a judicial review and other legal action to prevent Brexit”. At the very least, it wants to “ensure that Article 50 will not be triggered without an Act of Parliament”.
If the campaign succeeds in taking Vote Leave to court, Marcus Ball, the campaign’s founder, will act as the claimant on behalf of its backers.
The campaign plans to formally contract professional lawyers “at a fraction of their normal fees”. It has already initiated talks with several “legal professionals who have agreed to work with us but we are not yet at liberty to name them.”
It also hopes to challenge the referendum with “reference to the statements of objectively untrue facts during the course of the referendum.”
The campaign points to Vote Leave’s battle bus which controversially claimed: “We send the EU £350 million a week. Let’s fund our NHS instead. Vote Leave.” It also criticises pro-Brexit politicians, such as Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, for endorsing these facts.
#BrexitJustice does acknowledge: “these individuals and organisations may be completely innocent of any potential charges to be made against them.”
However, Mr Ball warns: “Our politicians do not fear lying to us because we have not made enough effort to bring justice to them for doing so.”
Mr Ball, a specialist in web and mobile software, claims the result of the EU referendum should not be accepted because the Leave campaign “was built on ignorance and emotion, not evidence.”
He previously organised a campaign to make essay writing mills illegal.
Despite raising almost £30,000, the #BrexitJustice campaign has been criticised by those who believe we should respect the referendum’s result.
Tom Slater, Organiser of Invoke Article 50 NOW!, told The Independent: “#BrexitJustice is a campaign that unashamedly wants to overturn the will of 17.4 million people.
“As for the campaign's suggestion that Leave voters were duped by the “lies” of the Leave campaign, it just shows how stupid people like Marcus Ball think the British public is. For the sake of democracy, we must all resist these snobby, anti-democratic schemes.”
So far, #BrexitJustice has received support on Twitter from Lord Alan Sugar, A.C. Grayling and Paloma Faith. To reach its target of £100,000, the campaign needs to receive just over £70,000 in the next 12 days.
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