Victory in the Supreme Court: Interview with Grahame Pigney
When on 24 June 2016, the yes/no referendum on whether Britain should stay in the EU resulted in a “no”, Grahame Pigney, a British former IT consultant living in France, felt disenfranchised — and not one to sit around, decided that he ought to take action.
After consulting top public law firm Bindmans LLP, he decided to crowdfund a legal challenge — the People’s Challenge — to ask the courts for clarity on how Brexit could be triggered. Was a referendum enough, as he put it, to take away British citizens’ statutory rights?
Today, in a decision that must surely be one of the most important Supreme Court decisions in recent memory, 11 justices of the Supreme Court determined that the trigger for a Brexit — the invocation of Article 50 — must be done by Parliament.
It’s a big victory for Grahame and the thousands of people who supported him in his journey to the Supreme Court.
We sat down with Grahame to discuss this historic ruling and how they got here:
CJ: What made you turn to crowdfunding at the very start of your case?
GP: Because it was the only way we could do it — otherwise we were going to have to put our houses on the line. If it wasn’t for crowdfunding, none of this would have happened.
How would you describe the experience of crowdfunding for a legal challenge?
It was hard work at first. We weren’t sure we’d make it to the first target but we stuck at it and eventually broke through. You have to have discipline and organisation. My career was spent as a project manager and at the end of the day, this was a project like any other.
It was completely fortuitous that we came up with the People’s Challenge — John [Halford, our lawyer] and I were in one of our early meetings discussing how we wanted to reach out to ordinary people to get their support. It became a great hook for us to hang the rest of it on.
Did you ever imagine things would take off in the way they did? What does it feel like to have had many thousands of people support the campaign?
The sense of responsibility you have is enormous. People are trusting you to do something. And that’s why you’re there — you wouldn’t be doing it if it wasn’t important. It was, and still is, extremely emotional.
When we won in the High Court, the relief was huge. I went along for the decision, and I was in tears!
How would you describe the feeling of taking the Government to court and winning?
It proves the point that the little guys — if enough of them stand together — can win! And that’s the advantage that crowdfunding gives you, that you can bring together thousands of people to stand alongside you. And they help you along the way by getting behind you with messages of support and encouragement.
Any particular messages from supporters that stood out to you?
Most people were blunt and direct and very complimentary. It was quite embarrassing, because I don’t look at it like that really — it was a job to be done.
What would you say to others who are looking to crowdfund for their legal case?
If somebody’s got a project like this that they believe in enough to want to do something about it, they should do it. Why — well, why not?
But you’ve got to convince yourself that you’re prepared to take this on, that you’re responsible for this, before you ask other people to join you.
What was your biggest key to success?
Communication to our backers was key. We needed some additional funding after the High Court case, and we knew we had an opportunity on the day of the High Court ruling to start a second round of fundraising. We were prepared well in advance — if we’d waited two or three days, I don’t think it would have had nearly as big of an impact. As it is, we ended up raising as much as we did the first time around in just a matter of days.
You certainly did a good job of keeping your backers informed with what was going on.
Transparency and information is very important. And some of it is pure dumb luck!
The government made such a big deal about keeping their arguments hidden from the public… well they ended up handing us an opportunity on a plate. Once we found out what they were trying to do, we knew we had the potential to engage people. The reaction was huge, it caused a massive spike in donations — people were unhappy and wanted an outlet to help. That really kicked on our first campaign.
The campaign raised more than £17,000 in the 24 hours after sending out this email to their backers (excerpt below:)
This campaign started small and eventually snowballed, garnering a lot of attention from the press. What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to someone who’s never done press before?
I’d never done anything press-related previously. Like anything else, prepare for it. Don’t get drawn off track and make sure you stick to your message. The more attention there is around the campaign, the more people will go to your page and chip in.
Message discipline is hugely important and that comes from practicing beforehand and being as prepared as possible.
The old adage I’ve seen as well is that there’s no such thing as bad publicity — despite some of the coverage in the papers, it still turned into contributions into our coffers!
On hearing the news that the Supreme Court has ruled in favour of the People’s Challenge, do you have a message for your backers?
Thank you. First and foremost, thank you — for the financial support and for the moral support, and it doesn’t stop here!
What happens next?
We have to make sure that what we’ve done is given effect. Winning in the courts opens up an opportunity to have proper scrutiny of what happens next and holding those in Parliament to account.
TIMELINE
Grahame’s top tips for successful crowdfunding
Find a solicitor who gets it. One of the big things was that John and I clicked — we respected each other’s opinions, we certainly disagreed on things but he was happy to talk them through with me, and he understood how crowdfunding was part and parcel of the legal challenge being successful.
Get other people to help out! For me, that’s been my son, Rob. Neither of us had ever crowdfunded before, but that didn’t matter. People should not underestimate what they can do. Provided you can break the problem down into bite-sized pieces, and get as many people as you can to help out, there’s nothing stopping you being successful.
Communication. If you look at the number of updates and emails we sent out, there were a lot, and each one had a lot of content. Part of the People’s Challenge philosophy was a commitment to transparency and openness and people seemed to respond to that. John does really brilliant legal based updates but they are extremely readable by ordinary people’s standards.
Have a legal case that could benefit from crowdfunding?
