The flag of Europe will be handed out to audience members at this weekend’s Eurovision Song Contest final by activists staging an anti-Brexit protest.
The Liverpool for Europe group has secured some 75,000 EU flags for the final and hopes these will be flown throughout the event.
This year’s final is being hosted by Liverpool on behalf of Ukraine, which won the event last year amid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s illegal invasion.
Follow our live blog for all the latest updates on Eurovision 2023
It will be shown on the BBC and other TV networks with millions of people in the UK and across the globe expected to tune in for the hugely popular event.
Liverpool for Europe hopes to replicate the scenes witnessed at the Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall in London in 2019, when activists waved EU flags and some donned blue berets.
“On Saturday, when the audience will be at its biggest, we are going to get as many flags inside as possible,” one activist told The Daily Mail.
“Liverpool is an anti-Brexit city, and we want that message to come across.”
Eurovision rules state that small flags can be taken into the Liverpool Arena.
A senior Whitehall official said the biggest concern was the potential hacking of the voting system like last year, when police in Italy, where the contest was staged, said the Killnet hacker group targeted the first semi-final and grand final.
Graham Norton and Ukrainian singer Julia Sanina will host Saturday’s final.
The events at the Liverpool Arena will welcome 37 nations this year, as opposed to 40 in 2022.
Countries that will not make an appearance include North Macedonia, Bulgaria and Montenegro, as well as Russia for a second year running.
Russia was banned from competing in 2022 following its invasion of Ukraine.
The banning decision was upheld by the European Broadcasting Union for 2023.
