Encouraged by the return of Labor to Downing Street, several hundred Britons demonstrated in London on Saturday to demand the return of the United Kingdom to the European Union, almost five years after the “monumental disaster” of Brexit.
By mid-afternoon, a sea of Europhiles dressed in the blue and yellow colors of the EU filled Parliament Square to the sound of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, considered the European anthem, after having parade from Hyde Park, central London.
On the square where the interventions at the platform were linked, many carried signs “I want to regain my freedom of movement”, or “Brexit is a monumental disaster”. Others displayed a “Where did the money go?” sticker on their t-shirts, in reference to the misleading promise made by former Prime Minister Boris Johnson (2019-2022), who insisted that the United Kingdom would keep “350 million pounds” a week to fund its public services instead of giving them to the EU.
“Brexit was a trap set for the British people because of the lies that were told,” lamented Alec Taylor, 71, who works in the insurance sector and wore a blue beret sewn with gold stars. Alec Taylor estimated that the United Kingdom will not rejoin the European Union any time soon, but that the Labor government elected in July will be “already more open, polite and friendly with Europe”, and will perhaps bring, here a few years, the idea of reintegration.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmerelected last July, is expected in Brussels next week to meet the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, with the aim of relaunching relations between the United Kingdom and the EU almost five years after Brexit. The Labor leader, however, ruled out joining the European single market, the customs union or the treaty on the free movement of people.
“There is perhaps a chance to reverse this error (of Brexit) with the new government,” declared Saskia Huc-Hepher, a 50-year-old academic who came to demonstrate, regretting that he was reluctant to create of a mobility system for young people. This British woman who lives in London is married to a Frenchman. “Brexit makes our lives much more complicated (…) We have two children, and it is a little difficult to build a family identity” under these conditions, she stressed.
