App launched by Final Say campaigners offers tactical voting help to elect MPs who support second Brexit referendum

Campaigners say ‘election is balanced on a knife edge and there are just a few days left if we are to stop Boris Johnson getting total power’

Placards stacked at the ‘Stop The Brexit Landslide’ event in London (AFP via Getty)

Campaigners for a Final Say referendum on Brexit have launched an app providing advice to voters ahead of the general election.

In an effort to deprive Boris Johnson of a majority government, the Vote for a Final Say organisation provides tactical voting recommendations and identifies the candidate in each constituency who is backing a referendum and best-placed to win.

Tony Blair and Sir John Major united to urge voters to put aside tribal loyalties in order to boost the chances of securing a Final Say referendum at the ballot box next week.

Sir John, who led the Tories in Downing Street for seven years, urged the public to back rebel candidates running against the Conservatives to block a hard Brexit, which he claimed was the “worst foreign policy decision in my lifetime”.

The new app produced allows pro-referendum activists to record details about voting intention on their device, and use it to speak to people on the doorstep when out canvassing.

The app suggests several ways campaigners can start conversations about Brexit, including talking about how the deal on offer from Mr Johnson is a “million miles away from what he and Nigel Farage promised in 2016” at the EU referendum.

Another adds: “Boris Johnson is heading for a landslide, which will give the hard right of the Tory party total power to do whatever they like.”

Mike Harris, chief executive of the communications agency 89up, said: “The use of technology in political campaigning has become increasingly controversial over recent years.

“But, used in the right way, people do not just have rows and rows of dots on a screen. Instead, campaigns like Vote for a Final Say and For Our Future’s Sake want to build a better political system based on what real people say in real conversations.”

Amanda Chetwynd-Cowieson, co-founder of the For Our Future’s Sake campaign group, said that in dozens of constituencies across the country the “election is balanced on a knife-edge and there are just a few days left if we are to stop Boris Johnson getting total power”.

She added: “The most effective way of persuading people is to talk to them. At a time of year when millions of voters will be heading home for Christmas, we want to encourage families and friends to discuss how Brexit will impact on all our lives.

“Too often politicians are stuck on broadcast, shouting their message even louder in a bid to get heard, but politics is at its most powerful when people talk to each other, seek to convince and change people’s minds, and listen to the other side of the argument.

“That’s especially true in the most marginal constituencies where a few hundred votes separate the candidates, in these places just a few dozen informed conversations could make all the difference.”