YUSU to hold campus wide referendum on whether to support Brexit People’s Vote

YUSU will hold a campus wide referendum on whether or not to support a People's Vote over the final Brexit deal, sources have told The York Tab.

The motion for the SU to support a People's Vote was proposed by Student Activities Officer Finn Judge to the Policy Review Group (PRG), a group of five students responsible for policy at YUSU.

The PRG concluded a decision on whether or not to support a People's Vote over the Brexit referendum should be decided by York students via their own referendum.

Finn Judge put forward the idea that YUSU should officially support a People's Vote. The motion said: "the Union [should] be mandated to dedicate resources, within sound financial reason, towards students taking political action in favour of a vote on the final Brexit deal."

He argued this should happen because "currently, YUSU can only facilitate political action on Brexit for educational reasons – and only when funds are provided for the Union to do so. Given that a large contingent of York students are EU citizens, bureaucratic red tape should not prevent YUSU from representing its members on such a vital issue."

As with all motions put forward to the PRG, students were able to give feedback on the proposal. This consultation period ended on Friday 16th November.

Sources have told The York Tab there is now going to be a campus wide referendum on whether or not the Union should support a People's Vote following the PRG meeting at 12pm today.

This has since been confirmed with the YUSU Policy Group confirming on Facebook that the proposal will be "sent to a campus-wide referendum, with the referendum process beginning with the selection of campaign leaders in week 2 of Spring Term."

We will bring you more on this story as it develops.