Tech for UK and Co aims to take David Davis to court

by Startacus Admin

A coalition of private individuals and campaign groups, including Tech For UK are backing a claim for a judicial review in the High Court against the Secretary of State, David Davis for exiting the European Union.

Chaired by Mike Butcher (Editor-at-large, TechCrunch), and in collaboration with Best for Britain and Our Future, Our Choice!, Tech for UK will aim to bring together the best minds in technology, social media, marketing and content production together to strengthen their aims to:

"Engage communities from all over the UK to fight Brexit as a disaster for the UK, and campaign for a meaningful vote on the terms of Brexit using tech and social media."

Tech For UK plans to hold a series of hackathons and events dubbed “The Great British Hackoff” from March 29th onwards (marking one year to go until the UK could leave the EU), aiming to engage tech communities from all over to the country, to kick off in a series of hackathons, meetups, hackathons, and happenings, to build the campaign to fight Brexit and increase public pressure on the government for a meaningful vote on the terms of Brexit.

Mike Butcher said: “What motivated me to get involved was the most recent idiocy of leaving the digital single market. Right now the UK is a global tech hub, and we want it to stay that way. People from all walks of life deserve to have a say on the terms of Brexit, and at the very least we need to enshrine the meaningful vote in parliament that our constitution necessitates we should have. By leaving the Digital Single Market HMG is breaking our bats before we walk out to play.”

He went on: “Brexit will fundamentally affect the ability of innovative UK tech startups to operate. It throws into doubt the funding required by venture capital firms; it could cut us off from a talent pool of 500 million people which is available right now, today, under our membership of the EU; and leaving the Digital Single Market will severely affect the ability of UK tech companies to deliver digital goods and services to EU consumers and businesses.”

The claim for judicial review reveals that the 2011 European Union Act could mean the British public have the right to a people’s vote on the Brexit Withdrawal Treaty. The 2011 Act also embeds the principle of a meaningful vote by statute.

Commenting on the application Eloise Todd from Best for Britain said:

“The 2011 Act brought in assurances that any significant changes to the UK’s relationship to the EU would be put to a people’s vote. This is the biggest change since we entered the EU. Also, it is likely to involve a transfer of powers because of the transition deal. This is not about leave or remain, it’s about making a democratic choice according to our constitution, given that lots of people are very worried about Brexit.

Currently the coalition are crowdfunding via leading crowdfunding platform for legal action CrowdJustice with (currently at time of publication) £87,388 pledged of a £100,000 stretch target.

We look forward to hearing (and covering) more on this Brexit Challenge campaign as it develops.

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• #eloise todd
• #uk tech
• #brexit challenge

Published on: 26th March 2018