sábado, 2 de julho de 2016

Never Gonna Give EU Up, cantaram milhares em Londres / We are the 48%’: tens of thousands march in London for Europe

Never Gonna Give EU Up, cantaram milhares em Londres
ANA FONSECA PEREIRA 02/07/2016 – PÚBLICO

Milhares de manifestantes desfilaram na capital do Reino Unido contra o anunciado "Brexit" e muitos ainda acreditam que decisão pode ser travada.

Londres não votou pela saída do Reino Unido da União Europeia e neste sábado fez questão de o relembrar numa Marcha pela Europa que juntou milhares de pessoas – 30 mil segundo algumas estimativas. Uma semana depois do referendo, ouviram-se críticas à forma como os partidários do “Brexit” fizeram campanha, à inexistência de um plano para o futuro do país e, no meio da multidão, muitos ainda acreditam que será possível evitar o que agora parece inevitável.

A marcha começou junto a Hyde Park e terminou uns quilómetros a sudeste, frente ao Palácio de Westminster, atravessando o coração político de um país ainda viver os primeiros dias de uma nova época de turbulência, depois de um voto que dividiu a meio o país, separando gerações, classes sociais e regiões. Entre os que saíram à rua havia novos e velhos, profissionais e estudantes, activistas e famílias com filhos pequenos, numa atmosfera que poderia ser de festa não fosse a revolta que se lia na ironia dos cartazes e dos slogans.

“Fromage not Farage” ou “We Love EU”, gritou-se durante o cortejo, onde a música deu mote a um verdadeiro medley de declarações pró-europeias, cantadas ou escritas em cartazes: Never Gonna Give EU Up, Nothing compares 2 EU, Don’t EU want me baby?, foram alguns dos sucessos pop chamados à manifestação. Pelo meio, dezenas e dezenas de bandeiras da UE, balões azuis e amarelos, rostos pintados com as estrelas comunitárias – declarações de quase amor a uma instituição que durante a campanha foi inúmeras vezes acusada de “antidemocrática” e “fora de controlo”.

O humorista Mark Thomas, um dos co-organizadores da manifestação, convocada através das redes sociais, explicou ao jornal Guardian que o objectivo era dar uma oportunidade a quem votou pela permanência para expressar a “revolta e frustração”. “Nós aceitaríamos o resultado do referendo se ele tivesse sido travado de forma justa. Mas o que houve foi desinformação e as pessoas precisam de fazer alguma coisa com a sua frustração”.

O mesmo “choque”, “desilusão”, ou “tristeza” de que falaram manifestantes ouvidos durante a marcha, como Nathaniel Samson, de 25 anos, que disse à Reuters estar “muito inseguro sobre o futuro” – o seu e o do país. “Aceito o resultado, mas quero mostrar que não o aceito sem protesto.” Outros, como Laura Honickberg, de 33 anos, saíram à rua para repudiar a sucessão de incidentes xenófobos dos últimos dias. “Sou judia e olho com grande preocupação para o aumento dos crimes de ódio na Europa”, disse à BBC.

Mas nem todos cruzaram já os braços. Keiran MacDermott, outro organizador da marcha, disse acreditar que uma forte mobilização do eleitorado pró-europeu pode convencer o próximo Governo a desistir de accionar o artigo 50 do Tratado de Lisboa, que formaliza a intenção de saída. “É ao Parlamento que cabe a última palavra”, disse, retomando o argumento – na base já de uma petição online para a realização do novo referendo – de que menos de metade da população votou a favor da saída (a taxa de participação rondou os 72% dos eleitores, dos quais 52% votaram pelo “Brexit”).

Apesar de legalmente possível (o referendo não é vinculativo) é politicamente improvável que qualquer executivo vá contra a vontade de 17 milhões de eleitores e tanto o Partido Conservador como os trabalhistas garantem que respeitarão o resultado. Uma realidade que levou os “Brexitiers” defensores da saída a acusar os manifestantes de mau perder.

A sugestão de que quem votou a favor da saída “não estava a ouvir” ou “simplesmente odeia a imigração” é condescendente, escreveu no Twitter o eurodeputado conservador Daniel Hannan. Outros acusaram os londrinos – a única das nove regiões de Inglaterra onde o “Brexit” não venceu – de “estarem a fazer birra”. “Os protestos contínuos sobre o 'Brexit' são patéticos”, escreveu uma leitora do site da BBC, acusando os defensores da permanência de “insultarem os que votaram pela saída acusando-os das mais variadas coisas”.

Este sábado ficou ainda marcado pela primeira intervenção da rainha Isabel II desde o referendo, num discurso solene no Parlamento escocês. Sem se referir directamente ao resultado – ou à crise política que gerou – a monarca admitiu que “num mundo cada vez mais complexo e exigente” “pode ser difícil manter a capacidade para ter a calma”. Sublinhou, no entanto, que cabe aos líderes políticos “encontrar espaço suficiente para que se pondere com profundidade a melhor forma de responder aos desafios e oportunidades”.   

We are the 48%’: tens of thousands march in London for Europe
Protesters aim to ‘show our neighbours we love them’
Ed Vulliamy
Saturday 2 July 2016 22.16 BST

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 isn’t big enough,” said Jonathan Shakhovskoy, who is with a marketing firm in the music industry, “we’ll do it again next week, and the week after. Normalise the mood, make it less ugly.”

“Un-Fuck My Future”, “No Brex Please, We’re 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 won’t go!” they shouted, rounding Piccadilly Circus.

At the end of the march, in Parliament Square, protesters listened to speakers including Bob Geldof and Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker as well as politicians such as the Labour MP David Lammy, and Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron.

Geldof urged Remain campaigners to take to the streets, speak to their neighbours and work to stop the UK’s exit from the EU. “Let’s get real,” he said. “Going online and tweeting your indignation is only venting into the ether. It achieves nothing. Come out. Take action among your friends, work colleagues and in your neighbourhoods. We need to individually organise ourselves. Organise those around us and do everything possible within our individual power to stop this country being totally destroyed.” .

Cocker, in a recorded a video message for the rally, held up a world map saying: “You cannot deny geography. The UK is in Europe.”

The comedian and co-organiser Mark Thomas said the march was to address the “anger, frustration and need to do something”. “We would accept the result of the referendum if it was fought on a level playing field. But it was full of misinformation and people need to do something with their frustration.”

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.

“I’m here because I feel totally disenfranchised, hoodwinked and browbeaten into this political, financial 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 from Cardiff – and drawn a heart and written “Peace, Love, EUnity” on the back of a pizza box 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 her mother-in-law, Tas Earl, insisted: “There is a point to this. 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, a manager with a precision engineering company in Birmingham, said he was one of the few people at his firm to vote Remain, “even though departure from the EU could bankrupt us in two years – almost all our exports are to Europe. It’s madness.”

Joanna Chapman-Andrews from Winchester made the point that “it’s a good thing in some ways. It’s brought a whole lot of issues into the open that weren’t there and needed confronting. It’ll shake things down.”

“It’s the mother of all shakedowns,” said her daughter Anna, who lives on a houseboat at Kew and had brought Joanna’s granddaughter Sadie in a pushchair for her first 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 convened his friends in a coffee shop on Curzon Street before the march, and joked that it was his leaving party before moving to France. “I’m 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.”

The demonstration arrives in Parliament Square Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
His friend Jonathan has an Irish passport, and is about to set in motion securing the same for his three children, “so they don’t 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 father-in-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 – planned 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. “It’s everywhere – ultimately this vote was about race, and fuck ’em, I’m 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 child’s hand in one of hers and in the other a placard reading: “A future of hope can’t be built on hatred and bullying.” “We’re here because we are the 48%,” she said. Exactly, not the 51.9%.

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