Free coffees leave bitter taste as protesting Europhiles seek consolation on Continent
IT WOULD be churlish to accuse Remoaners of being just that. Yesterday, as a little over one half of Britain prepared to celebrate, the other half (albeit slightly smaller) was trying to forget.
In a Suffolk café offering a free coffee to celebrate Brexit, one Remainer said she would rather pay. The woman – named only as Tanya – emailed into BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show to chip in on its Brexit Day debate.
“I have just been to a café for coffee and was told that one coffee was free to celebrate UK Independence Day,” wrote Tanya, “I was disgusted and insisted on paying for both coffees.
“I explained that I was not celebrating and neither are at least 48 per cent of the population. I expressed my disgust to the staff at the café and won’t be returning again.”
Sonia Purnell, the bestselling author, took herself off to Brussels for two days and drank a “consolation kir” in the same bar she used to frequent “30 years ago to escape my then boss Boris Johnson’s madness”. The Prime Minister was at the time Brussels correand spondent for the Telegraph and Ms Purnell was his deputy. “I just didn’t want to be in London,” said Ms Purnell.
Karen Hoyles, who lives in Devon, made her own protest by defacing 50p coins, scrawling “I [heart] EU” in permanent marker and posting photographs of the coins on social media. She urged other Remainers to do the same so 10 million such coins would enter circulation.
British diplomats in Oslo found themselves accused of being “Brexit party poopers” after they refused to receive a gift of a cake from a group of Norwegian Eurosceptics.
Norway’s Nei Til Eu (No To The EU) campaign baked a cake with British Norwegian flags and the message “Congratulations!” but the embassy declined to accept it.
“Your offer is most generous but we will unfortunately have to turn it down. Whilst we really appreciate the gesture of sending us a cake, this is not the type of offer we are able to accept,” the embassy wrote in a letter of refusal.
On Twitter, a rush of Remainers proclaimed they were “avoiding Brexit”. Suus van den Berg, an academic, tweeted: “I, for one, am ignoring the whole Brexit thing by going down a rabbit hole ... and bingeing Next in Fashion.”
Lucy Harrold, an intellectual property lawyer, posted her plan to avoid Brexit by making a visit to an art exhibition in Milan.
In Smith Square, about 30 Europhiles gathered outside Europe House, a Brussels outpost in London, to decry Brexit.
A guitarist set up a set of speakers beside a yellow Mini emblazoned with the phrase “B------s to Brexit’ and sang: “We don’t need no consultation, no border control” to the tune of Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall.