Countdown to Brexit

[Mi-Amigo]

The UK leaves the EU at 23.00hrs [11pm] tonight.

According to BBC News online see here 

The British flag has been removed from its pole outside the European Parliament in Brussels and replaced with the flag of the European Union.

A clock counting down to the moment the UK leaves the EU will be projected on to Downing Street.

At 22.00 [10pm]: Boris Johnson will address the nation in a video message.

At 23.00 [11pm], Big Ben will not chime due to ongoing renovation works.

[pgn]

I'll just leave this here...

[pgn]

Not going quite so well as they thought, is it...?

[jonsie]

The UK was a universal joke even before Brexit

I blame the Eurovision song contest which we were deemed to have left some 15 years earlier...

[pgn]

Is Eurovision not coming back to the UK next, as the latest winner, Ukraine, hasn't the stable infrastructure needed to run the contest...?

[pgn]

Well, whaddya know?

[TallTrees]

Give that man a medal @pgn 

[Cleoriff]

I watched that this week @pgn. From his response, I doubt revolting Jacob Rees Mogg will be back on The programme again. 🙄

[pgn]

Ah, good call, @Cleoriff ... Off to iPlayer or whatever it is called shortly, methinks - full context often helps 😁

[pgn]

Excellent suggestion, @Cleoriff - from 39:40 to 53:24 in this link to the BBC QT episode - and the lady, Pat Cullen, representing the Royal College of Nurses, made a good point about her Brexit-related benefit, in a way: as a person from Northern Ireland, she is entitled to hold an Irish passport as well as a British one - meaning she does not have to wait at the passport queue when travelling to Europe using her Irish passport, unlike her Scottish, Welsh or English travelling companions who have to queue up for a stamp in their British Passport...

OK, that described above is a benefit of being from Northern Ireland, and comes from a part of The Good Friday Agreement (GFA) referendum held in 1998 that had support from over 71% of the population of Northern Ireland:   https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1034...

And also from a concurrent referendum in Ireland on the same day as the GFA referendum in Northern Ireland, which altered the Nineteenth Amendment of the Constitution (of Ireland) to say "Article 2 - It is the entitlement and birthright of every person born in the island of Ireland, which includes its islands and seas, to be part of the Irish nation."

All of which is being cast to the four winds as the British Government decides to unilaterally reject parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol, part of the Withdrawal Agreement signed by both the EU and the UK as they left the European Union. Note how the GFA up above includes reference to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which the UK is so keen to remove itself from...

All a bit of a Horlicks, really.

[pgn]

And the Ballad of a Broken Britain continues:

And ...