In Parliament Square
There were no bongs from Big Ben but plenty of cheers and singing in Parliament Square as the UK officially left the European Union at 11pm on Friday.
A Big Ben was shown on the large screen and its chimes projected out via loudspeaker as thousands of Brexit supporters decked out with union jack flags counted down and broke out into a rendition of the national anthem.
A makeshift “Little Ben” was also on hand to provide a drumbeat backdrop to the proceedings. From hats to whistles to umbrellas and full suits, union jack flags were everywhere.
Jane, a 56-year-old travel money adviser from Bognor Regis, said she would be emotional when the clock struck 11pm. “I’ll probably cry. I cried at the referendum, I just couldn’t believe we had the strength as a nation to stand up and say enough is enough.”
She said: “We’ve come up here to celebrate for ourselves, not to rub the noses in it for those who voted alternatively, just to mark the occasion. It’s actually been quite stressful these last three years, it’s been a long painful process, so it’s time for us to let our hair down.”
There was dancing, chanting and spontaneous singing, as people held signs reading “Free at last” and “RIP remain”, many huddled under umbrellas to shield themselves from the rain. A large sign simply reading “Brexit” was placed at the foot of Winston Churchill’s statue. Despite the event being advertised as alcohol-free, some were openly drinking alcohol as they walked around the square.
At the Leave Means Leave rally in the evening, speakers included former Brexit party MEP Ann Widdecombe, Wetherspoon boss Tim Martin, broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer, Brexit party chair Richard Tice and Nigel Farage.
Farage got the biggest cheers of the night as he came on stage to celebrate the “the point of no return”.
“We did it. We transformed the landscape of our country. There are some that say we shouldn’t celebrate tonight. But we are celebrating tonight because we know this is the single biggest moment in the modern history of our country,” he said.
Like many of the speakers, he said the country had voted against the EU, not Europe and the European people.
“There’s nothing wrong with patriotism,” Widdecombe said to the roaring crowd. “Tomorrow we will wake up in a free country with a glorious future ... we’re the world’s fifth largest economy and we don’t need anyone to prop us up or tell us what to do.”
In between speeches there was crowd sing-a-longs of Land of Hope and Glory and Rule Britannia.
Eric, a 24-year-old student from Cornwall, came with his friends Hugo and Peter to be in a place of importance on such a historic day. “I wanted to be in the big square with Big Ben for the big moment,” he said. “I’ll be proud. Not many places have been able to do this.”
They said they had met people from all over the country at the event, including Manchester, the Isle of Man, Wales and Dublin.
Although there had been some remain protesters earlier in the evening, there were none by the time the event got into full swing. One protester was told to move to a different area by police who said they couldn’t protect his safety in the large crowd.
Peter and Lesley had travelled from Nottingham specifically to celebrate Brexit in the capital. “We’ve been waiting three and a half years for this,” said Peter. “Remoaners are bad losers on a pity party and they just need to accept the result, which we are beginning to see come to fruition, and to grow up, get over it and move on.”
“We’re here to celebrate, not commemorate, Brexit, and the fact that it is happening and we hope and pray that Boris will be as good as his word and we will actually fully, finally and irrevocably leave on 31 December.”
… and in Morley
In the West Yorkshire town of Morley, 350 people crammed into the rugby club to celebrate the UK’s departure from the EU by chomping on Brexit Banger Sarnies (£4) and listening to a mutton-chopped guitarist in a flag-covered shirt sing songs including EU Give Love a Bad Name and I Want to Break Free.
Melvyn Rutter, a climate crisis-denying environmental scientist, played the guitar with his teeth, delighting the increasingly tipsy crowd with a special playlist that also included The Final Countdown by Europe (“boo!”). Later, acoustic duo called Stephen and Aaron dedicated their cover of Don’t Let Me Down, by the Beatles, to Boris Johnson, after asking the crowd how many had just voted Conservative for the first time (loads).
The party was organised by local MP Andrea Jenkyns, a classically trained singer, who heralded in the new era of UK independence by belting out Jerusalem in a mighty soprano. Fireworks filled the Yorkshire sky as the clock tolled 11pm, as the crowd waved £3 flags and hugged each other in delight and disbelief.
Jenkyns provided the big shock of 2015’s general election by ousting Ed Balls from the constituency and is married to fellow Tory MP Jack Lopresti: their son, Clifford, was born on 29 March 2017, coming into the world the day Theresa May officially triggered Article 50. (Jenkyns’ website records her “thrill” at the coincidence).
She said she organised the party in her constituency “because everything happens in London and not everyone can afford to travel down”.
As she chatted, her Conservative colleague Lucy Harris, a former Brexit party MEP who defected in December, appeared on a screen via videolink. Her name had been on the invitation but it seemed she had chosen to mark the moment in the capital. She was “sad” not to be able to make it to Yorkshire, she said.
Morley is “Brexit heartlands”, said Jenkyns. “It voted two to one to leave, and it’s been a difficult three-and-a-half years for the country, so I thought: ‘let’s mark this moment. Let’s come together because we want the best for our country.’”
Many revellers had dressed up for the occasion. Karl Arthur, a railway signalman and local councillor from Selby, was wearing a red baseball cap which read: “Make Britain Great Again”. He said he was looking forward to the UK controlling its own immigration after Brexit. “I like the idea of Boris’s points-based system,” he said. “I think it’s wrong to have a free for-all. People come in for the benefits rather than to work.”
Wearing sequinned black trousers and a top hat, singer and dog groomer Caroline Silvers said she was playing for free in order to mark the historic moment. “I’m going to show my age, but I remember when it wasn’t ruled by the EU. I remember how much better everything was. When I left school you had three different jobs to go to. We had industry then,” she said.
Harry Johnson-Hill, 18, an aspiring Tory MP, had come up for the do all the way from Winchester. “There weren’t any parties where I’m from. It was too strongly remain,” he explained.
“I did think about going to celebrate in London but I thought it was too risky. It’s so open in Parliament Square and there will be all kinds of protest.”
At the bar, a woman with two union jacks spouting from her head took the BBC’s Nick Robinson to task. “We’re not racist,” she said. “But this is independence day!”
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