Battle of flags at Last Night of Proms won by Britannia
IT WAS the night of the battle of the flags.
Campaigners had threatened to disrupt the Last Night of the Proms by proudly putting up lots of EU flags.
But they were overwhelmed by patriotic Brits enthusiastically waving the Union flag, who outnumbered them dramatically.
Across the country, thousands of people gathered in parks wearing Union flag jackets and ties and fervently waving their flags as they joined in unison to sing a lusty rendition of Land of Hope and Glory.
Of course, the Last Night has always been a more international affair than the traditional massed waving of British flags suggests.
Many in the audience were foreign, with the Germans particularly well represented – including two friends from Frankfurt in full Union flag suits – and the banners have long included those from Portugal, Japan and the Netherlands.
But what you waved this year became a source of dispute when it was announced that anti-Brexit campaigners would be handing out EU flags in a show of “solidarity with the European Union”.
The campaign was backed by the Musicians Union, which represents more than 90 per cent of members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, which played last night.
n response, Aaron Banks, the millionaire Ukip backer, paid for 10,000 Union flags to be distributed.
Bruce Taylor, 20, an IT worker from Glasgow, who helped to hand them out, said: “People don’t wave Tory and Labour flags at the Proms, so why should they start waving the EU flag?”
John Woodhouse and his wife Liz have been coming to the Last Night of the Proms for more than 30 years and disapproved of the plan to turn the occasion into a show of support for the European Union.
Mr Woodhouse, 69, a retired librarian. “It’s a music event and that’s how it should stay.”
Mrs Woodhouse, 68, a retired teacher who had come replete with a Union bowler hat and flag, said: “I heard the people next to me in the queue for tonight saying that Brexit would mean musicians from the EU wouldn’t be coming here any more. That is just nonsense,” she said.
Oliver Carpenter, 38, a nurse from north London, said he had thought about boycotting the event to dissociate himself from what he feared TV viewers might regard as an endorsement of the Brexit vote by those wav- ing Union flags.
“But nobody notices you if you’re not there, do they?” he said. “So I got myself a big EU flag, just to get the message across that not everybody wants to leave the European Union.”
Nicholas Soames MP tweeted last night : “The Last Night of the Proms really is a national event.
“What a wonderful country in which we live and how lucky we are.”
‘The Last Night of the Proms really is a national event. “What a wonderful country in which we live’