Million marchers for new vote
Lee Hawley came to yesterday’s people’s vote march dressed as a unicorn.
‘‘I’m the physical embodiment of the Brexit fantasy,’’ the 37-yearold wedding photographer from Cheltenham said. ‘‘The costume’s a bit of a laugh, but I’m making a serious point: the mythical wonderland Brexit we were promised doesn’t exist. Leaving the European Union will be a disaster.’’
His view was echoed through the crowd marching from Park Lane in central London to Parliament Square to demand a second EU referendum. Organisers claimed that more than 1m people turned up to the Put it to the People march, putting it on a par with the demonstration against the Iraq War in 2003.
Meanwhile, the number of people expressing their fury online continued to grow. A petition calling for article 50 to be revoked and for Britain to remain in the EU has now attracted more than 4.5m signatures. It is thought to be the fastest-growing petition in political history.
At the march, AC/DC’s Highway to Hell blared out and demonstrators chanted ‘‘Bollocks to Brexit’’. Yet the mood felt both more subdued and more angry than the past anti-Brexit marches in the immediate aftermath of the referendum and again last October.
Every protester I spoke to was fearful the UK would crash out of the EU on April 12. Anger kept bubbling up: at David Cameron for calling the referendum, then doing a runner; at Theresa May’s handling of the negotiations; at the Brexiteers and their ‘‘false promises’’. As one second referendum supporter put it: ‘‘They’re all still fiddling while we stare into the abyss.’’
The witty placards that have come to typify anti-Brexit marches were still there, though. ‘‘Pulling out never works – ask any doctor!’’ read one. Another, with a picture of Boris, stated: ‘‘The only Johnson I trust is my own.’’ Perhaps the best was also the simplest: ‘‘Just make it stop.’’
Past anti-Brexit marches have faced criticisms that they were dominated by the liberal metropolitan elite, but yesterday’s crowd could scarcely have seemed more diverse. Cornish farmers marched next to Welsh students and Liverpudlian nurses. There were placards for ‘‘Tories against Brexit"; ‘‘Grans against Brexit"; ‘‘Middle-aged mums against Brexit’’ and even ‘‘Mime artists against Brexit’’.
The Hewitt family from Conwy in Wales, whose children ranged in age from 6 to 16, had set their alarms for 4am to travel to the demonstration.
John Hewitt, who works in construction, said: ‘‘I am here because I don’t like people taking away rights from my children.’’ He was scathing at the suggestion this was a march of the liberal elite: ‘‘We’re working class – not middle class.’’
The crowd was full, too, of the disenfranchised young: ‘‘15 when you voted; now 18 and angry’’, declared one placard. Mairi, a 20-year-old student from Wales, was 17 at the time of the referendum.
‘‘I have had no say,’’ she said. ‘‘This is my future. The whole thing is a mess. So many young people back remain that I’d be surprised if another referendum went the same way as last time.’’
Libi Winterstein, 10, and Lois Vincent-Gobel, 11, wouldn’t get a say even if there were a second referendum, but had still come to protest.
The pair held a placard saying ‘‘Don’t rob our future’’, and Lois said they were marching ‘‘because Brexit is rubbish’’. Libi said she didn’t want it to be more difficult to travel. Their mothers had personal reasons for protesting. Panja Gobel, 51, said: ‘‘I’m German; it’s hard to think about my daughter’s future with this disconnect with my German family. And I don’t like the general xenophobic attitude that Brexit has stirred up.’’
Jess Winterstein, 43, added: ‘‘My dad was a Czechoslovakian refugee – and I think that this sentiment of ‘We don’t like foreigners and migration is bad’ is rhetoric that doesn’t belong here.’’ – Sunday Times