Pro-EU activists will be marching in the streets of Manchester this Sunday with the aim of ‘100%’ reversing Brexit.
The event will take place on the first day of the Tory Party Conference and coincides with a separate ‘Take Back Manchester’ anti-austerity festival.
The protest, organised by campaign group Stop Brexit, will begin with a speakers debate in All Saints Park followed by a march to the doors of the Convention Centre, where the Conservative Party Conference will be in full swing.
Peter French, founder of the Stop Brexit campaign group, told MM: “The people in charge have had an education and an upbringing that most people could only dream of. This is what they did with it. They created this mess and ran away.
“David Cameron, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove. Nobody took responsibility for what they did. I find that deeply shameful.”
Alastair Campbell and A.C Grayling are amongst the prominent individuals speaking at the debate, as well as MP for Manchester Central Lucy Powell and leader of the Labour Campaign for the Single Market Alison McGovern.
Ms McGovern, who is also Labour MP for Wirral South, said the rally offered Northerners a chance to discuss the damaging effects a Tory Brexit will have on the UK as a whole and on the North in particular.
She told MM: “Too often conversation is determined by the fact that our political institutions and our media institutions are based in the South.
“It’s about time Liverpool and the rest of the North have our say.”
Mr French says the debate will readdress the misinformation given on both sides of the Referendum campaign, but that it was ‘100%’ a Stop Brexit march.
He said: “This will never ever be a soft Brexit march. It is strictly stop Brexit. Not hard Brexit, not soft Brexit. Stop Brexit.
“I absolutely 100% whole-heartedly believe that we can do it. I also think in time a lot of the country will come to that conclusion as well.”
Greater Manchester voted to remain overall but out of the area’s 10 Boroughs, seven voted to leave.
In Merseyside, Liverpool and Wirral voted to remain by 58.1% and 52% respectively, whilst St Helens, Knowsley and Hatton voted to leave.
Some Brexiteers have taken to Twitter to voice their opposition to the March.
Stop marching- we’re leaving!!# getoverit!!
— Tony (@stickscott) September 15, 2017
The more I see this sort of woolly protest, the more I know we were correct to vote LEAVE. Marching to stay in s corrupt Institution
— AW (@WilloAlan) September 9, 2017
a few thousand people waving EU flags means nothing it’s no success and Brexit is happening you can’t stop it
— James (@BrexitJames) September 10, 2017
Despite the divisive result of the Referendum, campaigners insist they don’t wish to criticise or patronise anyone.
Brenda Ashton, a spokesperson for remain group Liverpool4Europe who will be campaigning at the rally, said: “We want people to have their say based on correct information, not on £350 million a week is going to the NHS type of claims.”
Tens of thousands are expected to turn out to the march from across the North, and Mr French hopes it will be the biggest student demonstration there’s been in years.
In an impassioned plea for student supporters, he said: “This is your future we are fighting for. You will be denied the choices that we have had if this goes ahead, so please think about that and please come and join us.”
The Stop Brexit March will commence at 11.00am on Sunday October 1 at All Saints Park, Manchester, M15 6BH
