By Bev Haigh-Jones
Latest stall
Penzance stall Opinionometer – 12 April
After our recent stalls in Falmouth and Truro, we decided that it was time to venture a little further afield for our latest stall, so we headed to Penzance. Despite a less than encouraging weather forecast, the rain gods were kind, and we were met with a chilly wind, but a dry and bright morning.
Overall, it was a successful stall with plenty of people happy to stop to talk and give their views. This included a visitor to Cornwall who happened to also be a member of Swansea for Europe, as well as the editor of a pan-European publication.
Most visitors shared the same opinions, though there were a few who, even now, believe that leaving the EU was the right decision. There were even two who arrived just before we packed up who apparently have confidence in the government!
With those who claimed Brexit benefits, their reasoning was mostly the same as usual: “we’ve left”. Rarely do we encounter anyone who can provide a tangible benefit, even when they answer yes to the question.
The volunteer team engaging with stall visitors
As always, we are really grateful to our volunteers, without whom we could not run the stalls. We would love to have more of our members involved, though, so if you can spare some time to help us engage with the public and get their opinions next time we are out on the streets, we’d love to have you with us. There’s no regular commitment needed, just join in if you’re free, and when we are in a convenient location. It doesn’t matter if you have never done anything like it before, it’s actually very enjoyable, and you’d be surprised how easily the conversation flows when you are talking to like-minded people. However, even handing out leaflets, or stickers all helps the cause, so if you think that you might wish to get involved in any way at all, please just message us via Facebook, or email.
Europe Day event
The European Movement are planning a “Europe Day” event on Saturday 11 May, where groups around the country will hold street stalls, with celebration cards for people to sign, to thank our European neighbours for their decades of friendship. As well as Europe Day, the event will also be celebrating the 75th anniversary of the formation of the European Movement, and there will be postcards for people to use to sign up to their email, if they’re not already on the list.
As it happens, as our main stall organisers are unavailable on 11 May, we’ll be holding our event a little earlier than others and it will be taking place on Friday 10 May instead.
The stall will be located on Lemon Quay in Truro and will run from 10.30 am until at least 1.00 pm. Full details will be posted on our Facebook Events page and on our website.
Ongoing campaigns
European Movement membership
We’re still encouraging people to consider becoming members of the European Movement. The cost is low and the benefits of having one large, umbrella organisation bringing more than one hundred regional, grassroots, pro-EU groups together is considerable. This year marks the 75th anniversary of the movement and what better way to celebrate than to join such a well-established, pro-European organisation?
Joining is as easy as scanning the QR code shown above and filling in a few details, or, alternatively, you can join via their website; https://www.europeanmovement.co.uk/join-actionday
Face the Music
The latest campaign from the European Movement is Face the Music, a drive to get the government to take action to reverse the post-Brexit rules that have made it so expensive and difficult for performers and musicians to tour in Europe as they used to. Our involvement so far has consisted of distributing leaflets, plus finding venues that would take a campaign poster along with some of the leaflets. Please keep checking our social media and website for further details and if you would like to get involved, please contact us here.
Embrace Erasmus+
The message: “The Young European Movement, in partnership with European Movement UK and the British Youth Council, is calling on the UK Government to restore Britain’s membership of the Erasmus+ Programme, which was ended abruptly in 2020 despite promises of its continuation.”
After the success of the campaign to rejoin Horizon where we have at least become associate members, YEM and EMUK are now campaigning for the UK to rejoin the Erasmus+ scheme. They are running a petition to gain support and you can sign it, as well as obtaining more details of the campaign via this link.
