Bollocks to Brexit: Meet the Leeds student rallying for a second referendum

“Bollocks to Brexit” was the chant of choice at the protest on Valentine’s Day, with over 300 people shouting it in unison as they made their way from City Square, all the way to the Leeds Art Gallery.

Have you ever seen swearing that is more typically British?

The organisation, Leeds for Europe, called for the people of Leeds to join them on a march through the city centre, to share their new project ‘Brexit divides us, let’s stay together’. Hundreds of people joined together in City Square to march for over 30 minutes through the city centre streets.

Ending the march with speeches from various speakers, including Adam O’Malley, the University of Leeds student, with a message for MPs.

Prehistoric politics

Adam O’Malley made a passionate speech to the protesters, highlighting the people who the politicians keep forgetting about. Ahem, that’s us. He said:

“At no point in the process has Theresa May attempted to speak to young people, to see what our priorities are. Instead she listens to the dinosaurs. We’ve been ignored at every step of the process.”

“My generation are set to inherit a country that is frightened of those who look different to them. We value the contributions migrants make to our economy and our culture.”

So, who is Adam?

This 20 year old activist, originally from North West London, is a second year geography student at the University of Leeds. He mentioned that he got into politics at “a ridiculously young age, around 11 or 12 years old”.

“Roses are red, violets are blue, brexit is crap, lets stay with EU”

Students standing over 100 people strong

When asking Adam whether other students were supportive, he assured that the support is “overwhelming” and said:

“There is an incredible amount of support on campus. I work with Our Future Our Choice and there is around 100 students across all Leeds universities.”

Student curated brexometers showed an “overwhelming support of the remain camp amongst students”.

Students joined with Leeds locals in the Valentine’s day march

‘Where was my vote?’

Millions of students couldn’t vote in the referendum legally, because of their age. At 17, Adam joined these other students, missing out on his vote by a couple of months. He repeatedly asks people to realise, “you may have had a people’s vote but I didn’t”. He went on to say:

“A lot of young people didn’t get a vote, and our voices are being ignored in the negotiations, despite it being our future at stake”.

Thinking about his point it is slightly concerning that all first year and second year students have had zero say in what is happening, in a country that they are the future of.

What’s next for Adam?

Along with other students, Adam is heading down to London next week to take the fight to “their doorsteps”. Our Future Our Choice are going to rally the day of the vote and “demand to speak to MPs”.

The date is set for the UK to leave the European Union on the 29th of March, but Adam says:

“I really doubt we’re going to get to the stage of actually leaving on that date. I think it is definitely inevitable that we’ll get a delay. March 29th is not the most realistic of dates, to say the least”.

He’s not only making noise in Leeds, but taking the fight straight to Parliament to show MPs that student’s might be ignored when it comes to Brexit but they most definitely are not silent.