Bremoaner plot to hijack Proms again
ANTI-BREXIT groups plan to hand out thousands of EU flags at the Last Night of the Proms tonight – threatening to politicise the BBC event again.
One online Remain group has raised more than £4,000 to buy flags to be given to concertgoers entering the Royal Albert Hall, while another claims to have bought 11, 00 EU flags to be waved among the Union Jacks.
Conservative MP Sir Bill Cash accused the BBC of having ‘pro-European elements’ by allowing the protest to go ahead.
He said: ‘The self-indulgent flag-waving exercising which last year was in defiance of the outcome of the referendum result is now an even more perverse demonstration.’
An online group called ‘EU Flag Mafia’ posted a picture online of what it claimed was 11, 00 EU flags to be handed out tonight. The Royal Albert Hall has a capacity of ,272 with up to 1,3 0 standing. A crowdfunding page – which was set up by the Proms EU Flag Team – that initially aimed to raise £2,000 for the flags has received £4,218.
The group said: ‘The more flags we can get the better. If we don’t hand them all out at the proms [we] will find other events.’
A Proms musician said the group disrupted Beethoven’s Ninth on July 30.
They posted on cultural blog Slipped Disc: ‘Once the fourth movement commenced there was some rustling along the very front row of the prommers.
‘From what it looked like to me, the EU flag folks were more concerned at launching their political protest than in listening to the glorious symphony of Beethoven.’
The BBC and the Royal Albert Hall said the flag-wavers would not be stopped unless they ‘disrupted the smooth running of the concert’.