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Anti-Brexit activists march to parliament as MPs debate deal
LONDON, Oct 19, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Tens of thousands of pro-EU protesters
from across Britain wielding banners, placards and flags converged on
parliament on Saturday, as MPs debated the government’s Brexit deal.
Beneath largely clear blue skies, demonstrators rallied near Hyde Park in
central London before marching to Westminster to call for a second referendum
on Britain’s planned EU departure.
Walking behind a pink banner proclaiming “together for the final say”,
they chanted: “What do we want? People’s vote! When do we want it? Now.”
“The first referendum was jumping on a train without a destination,” said
Douglas Hill, 35, from Oxford, south central England, with his Estonian wife
and their baby daughter.
“Now that we have a destination, we need to have a second referendum.”
Another attendee, Theodor Howe, a 20-year-old student in Dundee, eastern
Scotland, conceded another poll could be divisive but insisted it was still
necessary.
“People should have a say in what is going to happen,” he told AFP,
expressing hope that MPs reject Johnson’s deal and that he is forced to ask
Brussels for another delay.
Politicians including John McDonnell, from the main opposition Labour
party, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan, were due to address the crowds.
Organisers from the People’s Vote pressure group laid on 172 buses to
bring people to the British capital, with the cost covered by supporters from
sport, business and entertainment, it said.
Former prime ministers John Major, a Conservative, and Tony Blair, of
Labour, feature in a film set to be broadcast to the crowds once they arrive
in Parliament Square.
“Whatever is the outcome, no deal or bad deal, it should not pass without
the final say resting with the people,” they said in a statement Friday.
London Mayor Khan was among those leading the crowd as it snaked its way
towards parliament, which was holding its first Saturday sitting since the
1982 Falklands War as the British prime minister bids to win MPs backing.
The protesters unveiled an effigy depicting Johnson as a puppet operated
by his chief advisor Dominic Cummings — a highly divisive figure who led the
2016 campaign to leave the EU.
A smaller counter-protest by Brexit supporters draped in Britain’s union
flag was also staged in Westminster, with rival demonstrators verbally
sparring with each other in the shadow in parliament.
BSS/AFP/SSS/1913 hrs