Cornwall for Europe, the campaigners pressing for Britain to remain in the EU, have been challenged by their counterparts in Yorkshire to a ‘sing off’.
Both groups have campaigned using popular songs, chants and shanties. But they have changed all the words to get their messages across. And now Cornish and Yorkshire campaigners are travelling to London on Monday 8th April. The sing off will be hosted by Steve Bray, who runs the permanent protest outside Parliament and often interrupts interviews with his flag waving antics.
Tom Scott, from Falmouth, says:
‘Sometimes you can get across a powerful political message with humour better than any speech or article. Our videos are being widely shared on social media especially twitter and Facebook where we now have 10,000 followers. That’s more than all the political parties combined’.
Charles Boney, Cornwall for Europe Press officer, commenting on the sing off and says ‘Our most popular songs are ‘What shall we do with this rotten Brexit ? ‘ sung to the Drunken Sailor tune and a new version of Trelawney, which tells the story of the way the leave campaign came to Cornwall telling lies on the side of a bus. People were told we would have £350 million extra per week to spend on the NHS. We don’t have one extra nurse or doctor but we now employ thousands of extra civil servants making emergency Brexit plans.’
Sue Winter, from Camborne, will be one of those singing and says: ‘We respect our fellow campaigners from Yorkshire but we do think we have the edge over them. Trelawney is a rallying cry and the best they have seems to be something about strange things happening on Ilkley Moor. However the sing off goes, we will still offer them a pasty as a peace offering.’
Emmanuelle Brook, the campaign Chair said: ‘ We enjoy friendly rivalry but things are now getting beyond a joke. Parliament seems incapable of making any decision. Mrs May has lost all credibility and Mr Corbyn only seems interested in getting himself into power. We are not a party political group but we do think that all parties have lost the plot. The only way out this mess is to put it back to a people’s vote. I fear that Europe’s leaders are finally getting fed up with us and we will not be shown much sympathy at the Council of Ministers later this week. In any event we cannot just drop out in chaos at the end of this week. If necessary Article 50 will have to be revoked.’
