{"id":36951,"date":"2019-03-23T15:23:06","date_gmt":"2019-03-23T15:23:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=36951"},"modified":"2019-03-23T15:23:06","modified_gmt":"2019-03-23T15:23:06","slug":"mass-london-protest-demands-second-referendum-on-brexit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=36951","title":{"rendered":"Mass London protest demands second referendum on Brexit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

London, United Kingdom<\/strong> – Hundreds of thousands of people are marching through central London to demand a final say on Brexit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the impasse over a way forward continues in Westminster, the original Brexit deadline of March 29 has now been pushed to April 12.<\/p>\n

Protesters want the government to put any solution to the deadlock to a second referendum.<\/p>\n

Dubbed “Put It To The People”, the march set off at noon (12:00 GMT) on Saturday and is expected to end with a rally near the Houses of Parliament at about 2pm (14:00 GMT).<\/p>\n

It is organised by the People’s Vote campaign, which includes more than 100 grassroots groups advocating for a public vote on the Brexit deal with the European Union<\/a>, and is supported by a number of pro-European organisations.<\/p>\n

Pro-remain MPs from across the political spectrum were in their attendance, while tens of coaches descenedd on London from across the country.<\/p>\n

‘Catastrophic consequences’<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The last People’s Vote march in October was one of the largest in decades, attracting an estimated 700,000 people.<\/p>\n

Among the high-profile figures who announced their participation is London\u00a0Mayor<\/span>\u00a0Sadiq Khan.<\/p>\n

“We are now days away from falling off a cliff edge with catastrophic consequences,”\u00a0Khan said. “It’s time to take this out of the hands of politicians and put it back to the people.”<\/p>\n

Brexit jargon: From backstop to no deal, 17 key terms explained<\/a><\/p>\n

“No matter how you voted in the referendum, we can all agree that the path we are being forced to follow is not in the national interest,” he said.<\/p>\n

About 17.4 million Britons – nearly 52 percent of voters – opted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum, while just over 48 percent voted to remain in the bloc.<\/p>\n

The vote redefined the country’s politics, drawing new fault lines within Britain<\/a>‘s two main political parties, Labour and the Conservatives, as well as its people.<\/p>\n

Critics of a second referendum say it would be even more divisive than the first.<\/p>\n

In a televised speech on Wednesday, Prime Minister Theresa May<\/a> told the British public: “I am on your side.” She reiterated her determination to deliver Brexit and blamed parliament for the deadlock.<\/p>\n

Her words sparked a backlash among MPs who have rejected the withdrawal agreement she negotiated with the EU twice since January.<\/p>\n

Petition against Brexit<\/strong><\/h2>\n

An online petition to cancel Brexit by revoking Article 50 went viral the following day. By Saturday morning, it had gathered nearly four million signatures.<\/p>\n

With only days to go to the UK’s scheduled departure date of March 29, EU leaders agreed this week on a dual-deadline mechanism to grant the UK some extra time.<\/p>\n

The UK will leave on May 22 if the British parliament passes the deal. If it doesn’t, it will have until April 12 to indicate a way forward, which could include asking for a longer extension and agreeing to hold European Parliament elections.<\/p>\n

If the deal is voted down again, the government could hold a series of indicative votes to see where consensus lies in Parliament, and a second referendum could be among the options.<\/p>\n

However, Parliament rejected an amendment calling for a second referendum during a series of votes in mid-March.<\/p>\n

While the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will not take part in the march, the party officially supports a second referendum. The party is mulling over endorsing a plan by two of its backbenchers that would see MPs vote for May’s deal on the condition it is then put to a public vote.<\/p>\n

Recent polls have suggested that if there were a second referendum, Britons could vote to remain in the EU.<\/p>\n

A snap poll this week found nearly two-thirds of respondents would prefer remaining in the EU over leaving with May’s deal.<\/p>\n

If the options were remaining or leaving without a deal, remain would still win but by a smaller margin of 43 percent. Almost half of the respondents said they would support another public vote.<\/p>\n

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<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nA few hundred people began the first leg of a ‘March to Leave’ walk\u00a0<\/span>[Christopher Furlong\/Getty Images]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Meanwhile, a “March to Leave” walk organised by former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage, considered one of the architects of Brexit, took off from Sunderland last weekend.<\/p>\n

A few hundred people began the first leg of a two-week protest due to end in Parliament square on March 29, accusing politicians of “betraying the will of the people” over Brexit.<\/p>\n

While Labour supports a “softer Brexit”, including closer economic integration with the EU, the hard Brexit wing in May’s own Conservative Party has been voting down the deal over the so-called backstop – a protocol of the withdrawal agreement to avoid a hard border in the island of Ireland, which they believe would tie the UK to the EU’s trade rules indefinitely.<\/p>\n

Alongside Scotland, Northern Ireland voted to remain in the EU in 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

“In 2016, Northern Ireland wasn’t mentioned and it’s now become what the government calls a major stumbling block,” Doire Finn, the 24-year-old Northern Ireland coordinator of Our Future Our Choice, a youth campaign group supporting the People’s Vote campaign, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

The border in the island of Ireland is set to become the only land crossing between the EU and the UK after Brexit.<\/p>\n

There are concerns that a no-deal Brexit would have serious consequences for peace in the region, as well as on the lives of residents\u00a0like Finn who live in<\/span>\u00a0the border area.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Because I live so close to the border, I don’t like my life or the people who have built lives on a border that is completely frictionless, to be called a stumbling block,” Finn added.<\/p>\n

“It’s important that there are Northern Irish people [at the demonstration] to have their voices heard in a more representative way than they are currently in Parliament.”<\/p>\n

“Young people in particular are going to have to live with the consequences of Brexit for the longest.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London, United Kingdom – Hundreds of thousands of people are marching through central London to demand a final say on Brexit. As the impasse over a way forward continues in Westminster, the original Brexit deadline of March 29 has now been pushed to April 12. Protesters want the government to put any solution to the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}