Our Future Our Choice (OFOC) was a British pro-

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

advocacy group for young people.

History

The

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

account for OFOC was created 19 October 2017. OFOC was incorporated as a company on 19 February 2018. Its four founding members were

Femi Oluwole Femi Oluwole (born 17 March 1990) is a British political activist and co-founder of the pro-European Union advocacy group Our Future Our Choice (OFOC). He has appeared as an activist and commentator on British television. He has written for '' ...

(spokesman), Calum Millbank-Murphy (spokesman), Lara Spirit (co-president) and Will Dry (co-president).

Activities

OFOC heavily criticised the government's approach to negotiating

Brexit Brexit (; a portmanteau of "British exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU) at 23:00 Greenwich Mean Time, GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February 2020 Central Eur ...

. In July 2018 it protested outside Chequers during a cabinet summit, holding a banner which read 'Your Brexit Deal Screws Our Future: Explain Yourselves'. In June 2018 OFOC and For our Future's Sake (FFS) unfurled a banner which read "Stop backing Brexit" at a festival event organised by the Labour Party nicknamed "JezFest" after the party's leader

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020. On the political left of the Labour Party, Corbyn describes himself as a socialis ...

. In the same month OFOC produced a host of billboard advertising targeting frontbench Labour

Members of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

(MPs), accusing them of "being in the pockets" of hardline Brexiteers. The adverts were similar to those produced by the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

for the 2015 general election which suggested that the then Labour leader,

Ed Miliband Edward Samuel "Ed" Miliband (born 24 December 1969) is a British politician serving as Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero since 2021. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster North since 2005. Miliba ...

, was "in the pocket" of the former leader of the Scottish National Party,

Alex Salmond Alexander Elliot Anderson Salmond (; born 31 December 1954) is a Scottish politician and economist who served as First Minister of Scotland from 2007 to 2014. A prominent figure on the Scottish nationalist movement, he has served as leader ...

. Left-wing outlets such as the Red Robin have claimed that OFOC was funded by centre right donors. OFOC's website stated that it was "powered by:

Best for Britain Best for Britain is a civil society campaign, launched on 26 April 2017, to stop Brexit and continue the UK's membership of the European Union (EU). Since 2021, the organisation's aim has changed to encourage greater internationalism rather tha ...

Open Britain Open Britain is a British pro-European Union campaign group set up in the aftermath of the 2016 European Union referendum. Background Following the referendum, the official remain group in the 2016 EU referendum, Britain Stronger in Europe, c ...

, and The European Movement''".'' OFOC have advocated the view that Corbynite radical change would be inhibited by Brexit due to a lack of political bandwidth and the potential negative economic consequences. OFOC later hosted, along with FFS, a number of "Parliament Takeover" events where a large group of young people visit Parliament's central lobby and meet with their local MPs to discuss a

people's vote People's Vote was a United Kingdom campaign group that unsuccessfully campaigned for a second referendum following the UK's Brexit vote to leave the European Union (EU) in 2016. The group was launched in April 2018 at which four Members of Pa ...

. OFOC's founders were regular speakers at anti-Brexit events up and down the country. This includes the

People's Vote People's Vote was a United Kingdom campaign group that unsuccessfully campaigned for a second referendum following the UK's Brexit vote to leave the European Union (EU) in 2016. The group was launched in April 2018 at which four Members of Pa ...

march and later the Put It To The People march on the 23 March 2019. The People's Vote campaign claimed the latter was attended by over 1 million people, although independent fact-checkers actually suggested between 312,000 and 400,000 attendees.

History

Activities

See also

References

Further reading