Soros-backed campaign to send roadmap to MPs to avoid Brexit

British MPs will be sent a roadmap next week by the Best for Britain group, which is supported by billionaire George Soros, detailing how they could stop Brexit and save the UK from “immense damage.”

Best for Britain says it is theoretically possible for a referendum to be held within 17 working days of parliament legislating for one, meaning it could be held in December. But the pressure group says the EU would allow the UK to have a second referendum as late as February or March next year.

Campaign adverts by the group, which have already appeared in London, Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool as well as in some national newspapers, are headlined “When will we know what we voted for?” and add: “We all deserve a final say on the Brexit deal.”

Best for Britain said it would spend £500,000 of its £2.3m in donations on newspaper and outdoor advertising campaign. The largest donor to the group has been Soros’s Open Society Foundation, which has provided £800,000. 

Soros-backed campaign to push for new Brexit vote

Soros announced Tuesday that Best for Britain, will launch its ‘manifesto’ on June 8 in order to secure a second referendum on whether the UK should leave the EU.

In a speech at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank Soros helped found, the billionaire said that “Brexit is an immensely damaging process, harmful to both sides.” While he acknowledged that “it’s up to the British people to decide what they want to do,” he pointed out that “it would be better…if they came to a decision sooner rather than later.”

PressTV-Soros trying to change Britons' mind on Brexit

US Jewish billionaire George Soros says Brexit is an “immensely damaging process” and a campaign for a second Brexit referendum will be launched within the next days.

Despite supporting the UK remaining in the EU, Soros did admit that the EU is facing “an existential crisis,” due in no small part to the ongoing political crisis in Italy. He therefore argued that “the EU needs to transform itself into an association which nations like Britain would want to join.”

The pressure group believes the majority of the British public are turned off by the Brexit debate and will only seriously re-engage once the prime minister has concluded her divorce negotiations with the EU.

The involvement of Soros in the campaign has been attacked by rightwing newspapers, with the Daily Mail describing the Hungarian-American as a “foreign billionaire” engaged in a “plot to subvert Brexit.”

Half of Britons want second referendum

In a December 2017 poll, half of Britons said they would want a second referendum to determine if Britain should exit the EU after it was revealed the Brexit divorce bill could be as much as $67 billion.

The Survation poll conducted for The Mail on Sunday showed that 50 percent of British voters thought they had to have a say in the final Brexit deal with the EU, compared to the 34 percent who opposed the idea.

May opposition to referendum

UK Prime Minister Theresa May has said she will not cede to calls for a second referendum on Britain’s exit from the European Union, amid the calls for a second vote on Brexit.

Back in January leading Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage had suggested that Britain should hold a second referendum on EU membership which he claimed would silence those who are against leaving the bloc.

"Maybe, just maybe, we should have a second referendum on EU membership. It would kill off the issue for a generation once and for all.”

"We will not be having a second referendum," May's spokesman said earlier this year as a response to such calls by both opponents and proponents of Brexit.

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