Ahead of the UK’s departure from the EU tomorrow, the Scram News team has travelled to Brussels to deliver an open letter to European Parliament leaders.
The open letter, telling the EU that Brexit is not in our name, was signed by over 56,000 people. We delivered all the names to Guy Verhofstadt (pictured above), the former Brexit co-ordinator for the European Parliament, as well as Vice President of European Parliament Katarina Barley.
Labour Party MEP Seb Dance launched the open letter in conjunction with Scram News last week, and he accompanied us when delivering the letter to European Parliament.
The letter has also gained cross-party support in European Parliament, and has been championed by Alexandra Phillips (Green MEP for the South East), Jude Kirton-Darling (Labour MEP for the North East) and Catherine Bearder (Liberal Democrat MEP for the South East).
Dance, a Labour Party MEP for London who previously and famously held up a “he’s lying to you” sign next to Nigel Farage in European Parliament, said:
“The incredible response to my letter just goes to show the strength of anti-Brexit feeling that still exists in the UK and beyond. At this stage we can’t stop Brexit, but the UK now has the largest and most active pro-European movement on the continent, and that will not disappear on 31st January – Boris Johnson would do well to remember that.”
We might be leaving the EU tomorrow, but we will not stop being Europeans.
Never in the field of human history have so many been fooled by so few.
I’ll always be European no matter what stance the country of my origin takes.
We miss EU already thank you for lighting up Brussels in UK colours and being so gracious despite the embarrassing behaviour of many Brits
On Boris Johnson’s red Brexit bus.
“
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.
Albert Einstein
Thanks for your civilised and gracious behaviour in the face of the opposite stance from some British politicians. I am a European now and always.
Craig since when is love pathetic 😉 Let me tell you about myself – I took the trouble to become bilingual and work in an EU country. I’m married to an EU citizen whom I love dearly, I have kids who hold EU citizenship, my EU experience was invaluable to my NHS patients, I have close friends in six EU countries and I am now working with people in the NL from England. The saddest thing is that the EU is the bravest and most enlightened peace project in world history and it has contributed to our prosperity and for many of us a better and stronger sense of identification with the world beyond home. There is no democratic deficit other than in some folk’s imagination and we have/had rights and freedoms which would have been inconceivable 40 years ago. I am absolutely 100% European and will always do anything I can to get us back in for the sake of my country and my children. I am saddened beyond words at losing my citizenship – you have to understand that Brexit is like being forced into an involuntary divorce. I accept that your campaign won according to the law etc despite the fact that I believe that your arguments are built on sand, all the FB stuff etc etc. We are smaller weaker and poorer country than we could have been and we have walked away from the commitments of two world wars fought to secure peace and generations long project to work to keep the flame burning. Do you have a problem with any of that?
Beautifully put, and there really is nothing to add. Thank you.
What a great commentary and tribute to the EU from a caring man. I agree with everything you say. It’s a terrible loss. On Friday I felt so depressed and couldn’t bear to see or hear anything from these Brexiteers. I feel cheering that there are hundreds of thousands, millions of UK citizens, who believe this is a terrible mistake.
This is an “incredible” response by 56000 people? What shall we call the decision of 17.4 MILLION people then?…I’ll tell you what is defintely NOT in my name, and that is this arm waving, grandstanding stunt of a pathetic love letter to the EU
Boris wouldn’t get the support of 17.4 million people now. Those who actually want to leave are now in the minority, and more in the minority than those who voted Remain in 2016. Why did Boris want to avoid “the threat of a second referendum”? Because he knew that he would lose.
Craig. I would like to see you try to get the signature of 17.4 million people on a letter, within a tight time frame. The letter was a gesture, symbolic of the unhappiness of many many people who disagree with brexit. Pathetic is lying down and letting people trample over you.
First off 2 million of your 17.4 are dead since the ref.As it was mostly an elderly vote.Empire nostalgia etc .Second ,democracy is not bully boys stuff.16.8 million people voted for the EU.They have nothing.No concessions, no understanding.If you think that a 52% ‘win’ grants you the right to shit on all the others.Then I feel sorry for you.But you can go and screw yourself none the less.
We are all European, the EU is just an idea which the bureaucrats ruined.
Tomorrow will be an extremely sad day for us European by heart and by passport.
The end of a dream. A real shame.
I hope is not a definitive farewaal,that is only a moment of pause and Reflection-That the reunion Happens as soon as posible .Hoping this Sad Day (31 jenuary 2020) is only a short GOODBYE-I Was Born On a Island :#Sardinia- I’m Sardinian-Italian-#ImEuropean- wishing you all the Best,A Big Hug and Return to join as in Europe. Soon
We are leaving get over it!
We are all still part of Europe as we are not detaching from the continental plate. Out of 16.9 million remain voters only about 60k have signed a letter.
This is what democracy is about if you don’t like it please try China or North Korea as your new homes and see how that works out. Be grown up about this and make this new beginning work.
Enjoy your Brexit – the fun will soon be over… 🙁
17.4 million trumps 56k- math not your forte i presume! democracy neither.
comparing relevant stats isn’t your forté for sure. polls have consistently put remain ahead of leave since the vote happened. The super rich manipulating uneducated people into voting against their own interests, just so they can turn this place into a tax haven for themselves, is not democracy. It’s more of a cloak and dagger dictatorship
Our family has British, Norwegian, Irish and German heritage, we’re European right??
Never be otherwise!
Amazing that Brexiters put down those of us who continue to feel European, like we don’t count! This is FAR from over.
A bientôt!
How sad that on our final day in the Euro Parliament, Mr Farage, not satisfied with achieving his goal of destroying Britain’s role in Europe, found it necessary to launch into a tirade against the EU. What did this achieve? Rather like
a neighbour stomping out of a party and then throwing abuse at the other guests on the way out. The man is a national embarassment. We will need to re-establish a relationship with our European neighbours. I hope the Europeans’ lasting memory of Britain as a partner, is not one of Mr Farage and his type. We are better than that.
Tot zeins.
So sad that tomorrow has finally come. I am and will always consider myself European and I am devastated it’s been taken from me x
Leavers would do well to remember that there was a very small percentage between the results of the referendum- 56 thousand people signed this letter but millions of others that didn’t may not have known of it’s existence. Tomorrow will be a very sad day for the history books. And even now, that moron Nigel Farage cannot conduct himself in a respectful manner. He’s an embaressment to this country. Brexit does not have my support, and is not in my name. I have never been more ashamed to be British!
Never have I been so ashamed to be British. Brexit has ripped our country apart and it will be a long time before we forgive or forget.
I am so sad to be leaving the EU tomorrow. I am so embarrassed & ashamed of our government and the behaviour of Farage & the others MEPs. I am now moving to Ireland as I cannot stand to live with all this nasty sentiment.
Will always be European.
Wow Maria, that was absolutely amazing. It’s exactly how I feel and expresses my feelings of powerlessness exactly. I too am ashamed of my Government and the ineffectual Opposition. I’m 72 and I guess I won’t be around for the new dawn, but I have a strong feeling we will become united again in the EU.
Maria,,every word you wrote struck a cord with me,I have tried over the past 3 + years to get our opposition parties to call for a Mueller style inquiry the reply was a deafening silence,.my mp Jeremy Hunt replied to my request by saying both remain and leave cheated, so by his standards that is ok.It seems both the UK and the USA are losing their moral and ethical compass.Like you I am outraged that my European citizenship can be stripped from me by a referendum that was described as deeply flawed,and for which I hold no respect, if I had the where withal and stamina I would seek some legal redress.Thank you sort your challenging statement.
As Remainers we have been abandoned since the fraudulent, to the point of criminal, referendum.
As the courts established, this result would have been voided had the advisory referendum been made binding, and yet we find ourselves bound since by it’s slim margin – a margin won on lies, propaganda, and targeted, military-grade, psychological manipulation used on an unsuspecting civilian population by a corrupt, self-serving Conservative party which cannot retain power without lies and manipulation of the (mostly misinformed) electorate.
It’s gaslighting.
It’s abuse on an industrial scale.
Brexit was a side-show, a crazy fringe idea until given legitimacy by Alexander Johnson (don’t call him ‘Boris’, he’s not a clown), and Michael Gove.
A50 stipulated that it must be carried out in accordance with our constitution. Brexit is anything but.
We’ve been denied a criminal investigation, halted by those whose power is borne of this corrupted vote.
We’ve been (mostly) abandoned by our main opposition party too, who chose instead to court a minority in their camp who favoured Brexit, and to surrender any power to hold the criminals to account.
And still our voices go unheard.
So let history hear us. Let Europe hear us. Let the world hear us and know the truth of it.
If it can happen here, it could happen elsewhere.
Those wealthy actors will not disappear, they will find new projects to influence and fund.
Heed the warnings of Brexit and, I beg you, prepare well. Install your safeguards effectively, and urgently!
The majority has shifted since the lies were exposed – every poll for the past two years has favoured Remain, but we’ve been denied any voice in this.
Remain parties have won overwhelming support in every vote since, but our FPTP system deforms the message.
The charlatans have won.
The UK is lost.
Our children will be poorer for it.
It’s utterly shameful.
Now we shall see how long the architects can cling to their ill-gotten power.
‘We shall not go quietly into that dark night, we shall continue to fight – fight against the lying of the right.’
And, we hope, you may be tolerant of our pathetic pleas for leniency when we free ourselves of this scourge and crawl, battered, back to the fold.
Never have I had such fear of a British government.
Never have I felt so ashamed of my Englishness.
I have no other home, no other ancestry to draw on, me and mine are stuck in this hostile little country, impoverished by our own vicious government. (The same government that created a ‘humanitarian crisis’; it starves it’s workforce, and imprisons it’s homeless for being poor – there is no help here for those already in utter desperation).
Britain, or rather England, has lost it’s heart.
Our government’s language of war echoes its own dangers.
Our fears are very real without the protection of our valued EU citizenship against such a callous and indifferent regime – the ‘nasty party’ rules supreme.
People are dying here already! The government response?
“The policy is working as intended.”
It’s utterly chilling.
To quote the recent speech given in commemoration of the holocaust, ‘thou shalt not be indifferent.’
We fight on because we must. For our children, for our country and for our rights as European citizens.
We hope you, our allies, continue to hear our stories and record (and report) the truth of it.
What right does such a government have to remove my citizenship?
How is it that, currently, as an EU citizen I have no recourse at all to contest this, no claim for compensation for what has been stolen?
If there is a way, let it be found!
And soon.
This is criminal. The perpetrators MUST be held to account!
Or it really could happen elsewhere… even, perhaps, where YOU are.
Forgive us, for we know not what they’re doing…
But, we suspect, it’s all about a certain Tax Directive.
Perhaps you could stipulate it’s inclusion in negotiations?
– A certain schadenfreude in compensation for “The People’s” losses.
Please perform your own criminal investigations – a Mueller-style inquiry is needed – with steep sentencing for those responsible.
If not, then there is no deterrent to the future ambitions of these perpetrators.
I live in hope.
I will miss you, and the gifts you afforded me, every single day until our joyous return.
Maria, Hear, hear. Eloquently, clear and truthful.
Beautiful and heartfelt and so heartbreaking. I watched the singing and hugging in Brussels the other day and I cried. I left part of my heart in London. I would have loved nothing better to continue building my life in that wonderful, complex and vibrant city. But as many Europeans..I took the heartbreaking decision to leave when I realised that the government of the country had made it clear I was not welcome. For my children’s sake and their future mobility around the world, to study wherever they chose, I moved back to Ireland and ensured they had their Irish and German passports. I fervently hope and pray that this is only a brief prelude in the great peace project of Europe..which of course is not perfect.. as nothing is. In our long and chequered history between GB and Ireland, we have kept the door open and we will continue to do so, as will all of Europe. I hope the way back is swift.
Oh Maria so perfectly eloquently put!! I still can’t believe it has come to this! My biggest hope is that the European court will find a way to get justice for us all and show that the election and referendum were illegal and therefore null and void. I fear for all of us, because now democracy has gone.
I intend to have ‘Citizen of the United States of Europe’ by my name when I die. Nothing will ever persuade me that leaving is a good idea. Like Farage, it’s an embarrassment. Vive L’Europe!
The strength of the human spirit will not be quashed. Even when angry little fools sit and wave their flags and celebrate today, there are those of us who hope. Hope is the wonderful thing that may one day bring us back. Well. Hope and a good dose of common SENSE.
I feel like we have returned to the misery that was post war Britain. I hope I die soon to rid me ofbthis feeli6nf of pure devastation. I lost my leg in a car crash 36 years ago and this is worsr. Please.do not desert us EU, we love you..
Au revoir, and thank you for having us. The majority in this country would like to stay part of the EU, including those EU citizens who work and have worked in this country and given so much and should have had a vote in the referendum and all those too young to vote who want to live live and be free to move around the countries of the EU.
This has been a nightmare time for remainers in the U.K., and for EU citizens who have worked, sometimes all their lives, here. The nightmare is not over. I know you will do what you can to keep us close, and help to retain reciprocal arrangements for those EU citizens living here and those of us with British passports living in or visiting EU countries, including reciprocal healthcare.
The EU project has been and is remarkable, and the EU parliament a beacon of democracy and forbearance. Please continue to hold the door open for our return one day.
Today is a desperate day in British history. I am so ashamed to be British. How could the Tories, Murdoch and our gutter press wreak this destruction on the UK, which will not be united for much longer. I am European to the end.
Like Paul I am also 72 and never thought I would see the day when this country committed such a self-harming negative act. I remember the optimism after the two votes to join the ‘Common Market’ in the ‘70s and remember feeling happy that my young children would grow up in the community of Europe. Right until the result of the 2019 election I felt sure that Brexit wouldn’t/couldn’t happen and we would at least have another referendum. The right wing press and the Tories will have to own this fiasco when it all goes pear-shaped, but no doubt they will try to wriggle out of any blame or not tell us the truth about what’s happening. How any country can successfully trade and flourish in 21st century without belonging to a block is beyond me! I do not want to live what’s left of my life as ‘A Little Englander’.
I am absolutely devestated by leaving the EU. For 3.5 years we have campaigned with our stalls, talked to people, marched, written to newspapers, attended and arranged meetings. We have done what we can to try to deliver the truth, but due to so many reasons, we failed. We have a broken democracy here in the UK and we must try and repair it. So many people blamed the EU for the failings of our own Tory Government, they were very clever, the Government recognised the inequalities felt by people in the north and persuaded them to believe it was due to our EU membership rather than their Government policy. So it is, we are leaving tonight, leaving a democratic institution, one that promotes peace and equality and what are we going to? But one thing is for certain, there will be no coming together, far too many lies and deceipt has gone on for unity to play its part.
Thank you for delivering this – at least we had a voice heard in Europe – I will always be European ♥️♥️♥️
Brilliantly written, Maria. I am desperately sad over this, I truly think it is the worst day for the country as a whole in my lifetime (I’m 57). I and my husband will always be European x
To paraphrase a quote from Star Trek ‘EU I am and always shall be, your friend’