2/7/2016

'Wearethe48%':tensofthousandsmarchinLondonforEurope|Politics|TheGuardian

'We are the 48%': tens of thousands march in

London for Europe
Weve been disenfranchised and hoodwinked, say protesters as hotel chambermaids come to the
windows to cheer
Ed Vulliamy
Saturday 2 July 2016 16.12BST

The hollow, bitter wit of the banners and placards was a fair indication of who took to the
streets of London, in their tens of thousands, on the March for Europe on Saturday, hastily
scrambled on Facebook. And if this isnt big enough, said Jonathan Shakhovskoy, who is with
a marketing rm in the music industry, well do it again next week, and the week after.
Normalise the mood, make it less ugly.
Un-Fuck My Future, No Brex Please, Were British, they read. Pictures of Whitney Houston
with I Will Always Love EU, Europe Innit and I wanna be deep inside EU. All EU Need is
Love, Fromage not Farage, Eton Mess and, more seriously, Science Needs EU. Hell no,
we wont go! they shouted, rounding Piccadilly Circus.
No one was fooling themselves that these were the penitent huddled masses from Ebbw Vale
or Sunderland come to beg after all for EU funding; this was a vocal segment of the 48% for
whom departure from the EU is a disgrace, a catastrophe or both.
Im here because I feel totally disenfranchised, hoodwinked and browbeaten into this
political, nancial and social suicide, said Mark Riminton, a business consultant from Sussex,
and the only thing I can think of to do is go on a march.
Lark Tester, an optometrist, had come up from Cardi and drawn a heart and written Peace,
Love, EUnity on the back of a pizza carton to make her placard. Even if we achieve nothing,
she said, we will have shown our neighbours in Europe that we are not all for Brexit, and we
love you. But there is a point to this, insisted her mother-in-law, Tas Earl. We need to stress
that it is not possible for them to go ahead with Article 50 with just under half the country
totally opposed to what they are doing.
David Lang is a manager with a precision engineering company in Birmingham who says he
was one of the few people at his rm to vote Remain, even though departure from the EU
could bankrupt us in two years almost all our exports are to Europe. Its madness.
Joanna Chapman-Andrews from Winchester made the point that its a good thing in some
ways. Its brought a whole lot of issues into the open that werent there and needed
confronting. Itll shake things down.
Its the mother of all shakedowns, said her daughter Anna, who lives on a houseboat at Kew
and had brought Joannas granddaughter Sadie in a pushchair for her rst demo.
There was a strong hint of one of the many upcoming chapters in this unsteady narrative: a
brain-drain from Britain, and the shedding of British passports. Alex Good, an architect, had
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2/7/2016

'Wearethe48%':tensofthousandsmarchinLondonforEurope|Politics|TheGuardian

convened his friends in a coee shop on Curzon Street before the march, and joked that it was
his leaving party before emigration to France. Im here, but to be honest I think the march will
achieve very little. I campaigned for Remain, and it was clear to me that Britain has a lot to do
before it really deserves to be a member of the EU.
His friend Jonathan has an Irish passport, and is about to set in motion securing the same for
his three children, so they dont get stuck here. The writer and historian Stella Tillyard was
marching, but also carefully planning her next move: residency in Italy, to which she is entitled
for family reasons. Stationery retailer Julian Watson, up from Bristol, explained that his fatherin-law was Dutch, and that he and his wife plan to be living in Holland, if this happens, with
Dutch citizenship.
Liz Mackie and her boyfriend Leo Dawson both in their 20s plan to move to Athens within
six months, said Leo. The vote showed that deep racism is not something that happens to
other people, locked away, said Liz. Its everywhere ultimately this vote was about race,
and fuck em, Im out.
In some ways, those who watched the march pass were as interesting to observe as the
demonstrators. From the open top of a tour bus, a man jeered and booed, thumbs down. But
chambermaids ran to the windows of bedrooms they were cleaning at the Ritz to cheer,
applaud and wave.
Fiona Edwards from Brighton held her childs hand in one of hers and in the other a placard
reading: A future of hope cant be built on hatred and bullying. Were here because we are
the 48%, she said. Exactly, not the 51.9%.

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