After 47 years of membership, and four years of mind-numbingly exhaustive debate since the 2016 referendum, The UK finally left the EU on Friday, January 31.
Vote Leave whistleblower Shahmir Sanni, in a recent op-ed for Dazed, put things pretty succinctly: “The referendum was not a democratic exercise. It was a crime scene.” And yet, here we are in 2020, freshly severed from the biggest trading bloc in the world.
To honour the occasion, Brexiteers held a Brexit celebration at Parliament Square in London, with promises of a lineup of all the big-hitters of the Leave Campaign including Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage. The B-list was popping – former MEP and Tory MP Ann Widdecombe (who is against abortion, voted against LGBTQ+ law updates, and believes in conversion therapy), losing Brexit Party candidate and The Apprentice season two contestant Michelle Dewberry, and Wetherspoons founder and famous Leaver Tim Martin – what this “celebration” constituted was never made clear exactly.
Was there be free pie and mash? Royal family face masks? A tweet from the Leave Means Leave account merely invited attendees to get down for 9:30pm for the festivities: “Grab your Union flag and come celebrate Brexit,” it read. Sounds like great fun, so we had to join.
And what actually happened on that dark night in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament? Dazed went undercover and on the ground with Brexit Babe Tori West – editor of BRICKS magazine, creative, and activist by day, Tory West for the evening – to report from the frontlines. There was some patriotic karaoke, a countdown to 11PM when the deed was officially done, Big Ben’s ghostly bongs on speakers, and some galling chants. Tori met Leavers in their Amazon-bought Union Jack suits, played ‘snog marry avoid’ with increasingly concerning results, and got people’s thoughts on the very not real Ann Summers Brexit dildo – Brexit isn’t the only thing that’s coming home, eh? (Cries).
