March for Europe: Leave and Remain supporters face-off as thousands flood London's streets for anti-Brexit protest

Mark Chandler3 September 2016
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Thousands of protesters flooded the capital’s streets this afternoon in support of the EU, but police were needed to keep them apart from pro-Brexit supporters.

Organisers of today’s March for Europe hope it will increase pressure on the Government to delay activating Article 50, the formal process leading to Brexit.

Those addressing march included human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, left-wing columnist Owen Jones and comedian Eddie Izzard.

At one stage of the protest, Izzard was involved in a bizarre scuffle with a man who snatched his pink beret before police stepped in.

Brexit: Leave supporters held a counter-protest
Chris Radburn/PA Wire

And a group of Brexit supporters taunted marchers from behind a police line, holding aloft Union Jack flags and signs saying "Hello brainwashed remainiacs".

A confrontation erupted in Whitehall when a cohort of Brexit campaigners yelled at the EU marchers as they passed each other in the street.

One group of men with hidden faces tried to block the passage of the march with a banner, but were moved aside by the blue-clad crowd.

Campaigners marched from Hyde Park and through Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament, where a debate on whether a second EU referendum should take place will be held on Monday.

It comes after an online petition garnered more than four million signatures after the vote to leave the EU in June, but an official Government response to the campaign said the Brexit decision "must be respected".

The demonstrations are also calling for greater public consultation on every stage of the Brexit negotiations.

Rally: One banner read "We're the 48%"

Simultaneous protests rallying support for keeping close economic, cultural and social links to Europe are taking place in Edinburgh, Birmingham, Oxford, and Cambridge.

Crowds: The rally went from Park Lane to Parliament Square
Chris Radburn/PA Wire

A sea of blue EU flags filled Parliament square shortly after 1pm, where protesters sang along to The Beatles' hit Hey Jude, replacing the title words instead with "EU".

Protesters held up banners with the words: “We are European” and “Remain and reform the EU”.

Others waved baguettes in the air, while some chose to have their face with the EU’s blue and yellow flag.

But Leave voters have accused the marchers of sour grapes and wanting to overturn democracy.

March: Thousands joined the London protest
PA

Mr Jones said: “In a democracy you don't get a situation when one person wins and everybody else shuts up and has to support them, we've all got to use our freedom of expression to have a say in this country and that's what this is about."

He added: "I think it's problematic arguing for a second referendum now. One side lost, relatively narrowly, but it was still a loss, you can't just have referendums until you get the right result.

"I think now the focus has to be on what the terms of Brexit currently are and that means people who voted remain having an input and being listened to, you don't have just one chunk of the country deciding our precise relationship with Europe and what Brexit means - all of us have to have that role as well."

LitcChick79 tweeted a picture of a blue EU armband, writing: “The time is now. The 48% will never stop fighting for the Uk’s rightful place as a European nation.”

New co-leader of the Green Party Caroline Lucas tweeted: “Solidarity with #marchforeurope today - not about overturning referendum result but giving people right to a say on draft terms of #Brexit.”

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