Overwhelming support to give cash to good cause

People would rather see money raised to bong the bells of Big Ben marking Brexit to go to charity instead.

A new survey from the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) shows that more than seven in 10 (73%) of us agree the money should go to charity, with nearly eight in 10 (77%) of us disagreeing when asked if the appeal was a good use of funds.

The UK will officially leave the EU this Friday 31st of January at 11pm and a crowdfunding campaign to raise £500,000 to ring Big Ben to mark the occasion raised £272,000 before being halted.

In the end, the campaign group decided to donate the money raised to veterans’ charity Help for Heroes.

Caroline Mallan of CAF comments: “This is a great example of how supportive the public is when it comes to the role of charities in our society. The British people are overwhelmingly happy to see the money raised for Big Ben being spent instead on helping veterans and military families.”

The role charities can play to help heal divisions in society was borne out in earlier research by CAF, which found that almost seven in 10 (68%) of people felt that charities play an important role in society and more than four in 10 (43%) felt they could improve community cohesion.