A LABOUR peer and an Oxford University economist have urged a crowd in Oxford to fight to derail Brexit.

Journalist Lord (Andrew) Adonis and principal of Hertford College, Oxford, Will Hutton told the pro-Europe rally yesterday to apply 'massive, massive pressure' to Conservative MPs to push for a second referendum on the final Brexit deal next year.

Lord Adonis told the crowd in front of the Sheldonian Theatre in Broad Street that four million pro-European 16 and 17-year-olds who were not able to vote in the last referendum would next year be able to, and could sway the vote in favour of Remain.

He told his cheering audience: "Let the message go out from here: we are not handing this country over to Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Boris Johnson.

"We are not giving up: we can win this.

"There is absolutely no reason Brexit should happen. 

"Theresa May has to come back with her treaty at the end of this year... we then realise there is no £350m for the NHS.

"The demand of the British people is that we should have the final say on this treaty next year."

Lord Adonis also warned that Britain was not going to become an 'inward-looking, xenophobic' nation.

He concluded his speech: "We can do  it together and it needs to be massive, massive pressure, particularly on Conservative MPs who will hold the balance of power next year."

Former Observer editor Mr Hutton, meanwhile, told the rally organised by Oxford for Europe that Remainers would only win their fight by recognising that 'people who voted Brexit have damn bad lives'.

He went on: "Many of them voted as an act of economic and social protest about the way our country has been organised over the past generation.

"Too many parts of our country have been neglected, badly neglected, and it's no accident that so many people who earn less than 20,000 a year, more than two thirds of them, voted Brexit.

"It's no accident that the social mobility cold spots around the county voted Brexit: they had nothing to lose, they hoped for something better."

He concluded his speech with a rallying cry: "We must never allow this to happen again; we must never allow so many people who are hurting to take such an extreme way to get out of the hurt they feel."

And Warren Ford, 58, visiting from Plymouth, tried to interrupt the speeches to make the case for Brexit. 

The dad-of-five said he felt the demonstration was ‘elitist’.