Fashion tycoon ploughs £1m into People’s Vote campaign
2 min read
The campaign for a second Brexit referendum has been given a £1m boost by the fashion tycoon who co-founded the Superdry clothing company.
Multi-millionaire Julian Dunkerton has ploughed cash into the cross-party campaign group The People’s Vote, which aims to secure a referendum on the final Brexit deal.
The business mogul said he said he had made the donation as he saw a “genuine chance to turn this around”.
He also credited the EU with Superdry’s success, telling the Observer: “If Brexit had happened 20 years earlier, Superdry would never have become the global success that it did.
“We would have struggled to cope with negotiating customs and tariffs. Perhaps even more importantly, Europe was our staging post because inside the single market we had no fear of opening a store in France, Germany, Belgium or anywhere else.”
He added: “I’m putting some of my money behind the People’s Vote campaign because we have a genuine chance to turn this around.
“I’ve got a good instinct for when a mood is going to change and we’re in one of those moments now.
“It’s becoming clear there is no vision for Brexit and the politicians have made a mess of it. Increasingly, the public knows that Brexit is going to be a disaster.
“Maybe they just need to be given that little bit of hope that comes when they see how opinion is moving.”
The cash will be spent on a swathe of new polling on the issue, which the campaign hopes will boost support for a second vote.
The most recent survey suggests that 45% of the public would back another referendum, with 34% opposed.
Meanwhile, an Opinium poll for the Observer has found that 40% of people now believe the UK will crash out of the EU without a deal – up from 31% last month.
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