LONDON: Several hundred people gathered in central London on Saturday to demand that the UK rejoin the European Union, from which it departed in 2020.
Protesters carried signs reading “Brexit is a monumental disaster” and chanted “rejoin” as they marched past Downing Street before convening in Parliament Square.
“With the new Labour government, there may be a chance to start reversing this mistake,” said academic Saskia Huc-Hepher, 50, whose husband is French. Insurance worker Alex Taylor, 71, added, “Brexit was a trick against the British people… we need to keep protesting even if change isn’t immediate.”
The demonstration was organized by the National Rejoin March, which advocates for reversing Brexit. Their mission is to keep the push for rejoining the EU on the political agenda until the UK is back within the bloc.
The UK’s exit from the EU, known as “Brexit,” followed a referendum in 2016. New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who took office after a general election in July that ended 14 years of Conservative leadership, is scheduled to meet EU chief Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels next week to discuss plans for resetting UK-EU relations post-Brexit.
While Starmer, a former human rights lawyer and chief state prosecutor, supported remaining in the EU during the 2016 referendum and previously served as Labour’s Brexit spokesman, he has stated that a full reversal of Brexit is not on the agenda. However, he aims to negotiate a new security pact with the EU, establish a veterinary agreement to ease border checks on agricultural products, and improve trading relations.
