“Our Future Our Choice” is seen as a spontaneous “youth” movement against Brexit. But latest figures from the Electoral Commission show that, as the “second-referendum” campaign fell apart, it gave £20k to a group run by former New Labour hatchet man Alastair Campbell (62 years old) and Tory Peer Patience Wheatcroft (68 years old).

Wheatcroft is a former Sunday Telegraph editor, one-time Barclays director and lifelong Tory activist.

According to the Electoral Commission, OFOC gave a £20k donation on December 11 2019 to the “PV Media Hub Limited.” This is Alastair Campbell’s “People’s Vote Media Hub,” his own personal pro-“second referendum” organisation, which he runs with Patience Wheatcroft and others.

Because of financial transparency rules that apply during election periods, we have had a brief window into the funding of the PV Media Hub, which had to report its finances during the election.

 “Our Future Our Choice,”  also known as “OFOC” funds the activities of popular young “anti-Brexit” spokespeople like Femi Oluwole, but it was in fact brought together by one middle-aged corporate lobbyist and has since always relied on support from other corporate lobbyists.

OFOC was part of the family of “second-referendum” campaigns which were housed in offices supplied by Open Britain, the main “People’s Vote” campaign.

Open Britain was in turn run by people like City lobbyist Roland Rudd (Amber Rudd’s brother) and Joe Carberry (a former New Labour guy turned head of PR for Deliveroo).

In November the second-referendum campaign fell apart as the different corporate lobbyists who ran it fell out with each other. Roland Rudd and his allies tried to kick out Alastair Campbell and his allies. Rudd is a long-standing City lobbyist. Campbell was once Tony Blair’s sidekick, but now works for the lobbying company Portland as an adviser.

Portland, which was founded by another former Blair adviser, Tim Allan, numbers Uber, McDonald’s, Southern Water and the repressive governments of Qatar and Kazakhstan among its clients. Tim Allan also gave £10k to Campbell’s “PV Media Hub” during Campbell’s battle with Roland Rudd. In effect, when the “ People’s Vote “ split, it was an argument between two sets of corporate lobbyists: Roland Rudd of Finsbury v Alastair Campbell of Portland. OFOC have sided with Campbell.

OFOC being involved with corporate lobbyists is not new. They were founded by Felix Marquardt, a French lobbyist who previously worked for clients like oil giant Total or the president of Kazakhstan. Marquardt recruited OFOC’s spokespeople.

OFOC broke with Marquardt over various  differences in 2018, when they transferred their allegiance first to Rudd’s group, then to Campbell.