Johnson hails UK's 'new beginning' as Brexit day arrives

Anti-Brexit protesters hold placards in London on Friday. Pic/AFP

London: Britain begins the day as a member of the European Union (EU). Its status at the end of the day 'as a proud nation that has reclaimed its sovereignty, or a diminished presence in Europe and the world' will still be up for debate.

Britain officially departs the EU at 11 pm local time on Friday, midnight in Brussels (2300 GMT, 6 pm EST).

The departure comes three and a half years after the country voted by a margin of 52-48 per cent to walk away from the club that it had joined in 1973. It's the first time a country has left the EU, and many in the bloc regard it as a sad day. In Brussels, European Council President Charles Michel and EU commission leader Ursula von der Leyen are due to sketch out the EU's first steps as a group of 27, rather than 28.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to meet in the morning with his Cabinet in the pro-Brexit town of Sunderland, in northeast England. He is scheduled to deliver a televised address to the country an hour before departure, calling Brexit, 'not an end but a beginning.' According to his office, he will describe it as 'a moment of real national renewal and change.'

Some Brexit supporters will be holding more raucous celebrations.Arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage and his band of devotees will gather for patriotic songs and speeches in London's Parliament Square to mark a moment that even Farage sometimes doubted would ever come. Britain was never a wholehearted EU member, but actually leaving the bloc was long considered a fringe idea.

1973
Year Britain joined the European Nations

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