UK to celebrate Brexit with flags and ‘light display’

Britain’s PM Boris Johnson greets European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outside 10 Downing Street | Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images

A bid to ring Big Ben’s bells to mark the occasion has failed.

Boris Johnson has unveiled plans to mark January 31 with a light show, a countdown and a special address.

No. 10 will mark the U.K.’s exit at 11 p.m. with a light display in Westminster, which will include a countdown clock projected onto the black bricks of Downing Street. Other buildings on Whitehall will also be lit up.

The government said in a press statement that it wanted to use the moment to “heal divisions, re-unite communities and look forward to the country that we want to build.”

Cabinet ministers will hold a meeting in the north of England during the day to discuss “levelling up” all parts of the country — in other words, spread resources to areas of the country outside of the south-east of England — and Johnson will deliver a speech to the nation in the evening.

The union jack will be flown from all the flag poles on Parliament Square, No. 10 said. A commemorative Brexit coin will come into circulation, etched with the words “peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations.”

Separately, the Leave Means Leave campaign, headed by Nigel Farage, said it had been granted permission to hold a celebration on Parliament Square that night.

A bid to ring Big Ben’s bells to mark the occasion has failed, after parliamentary authorities said they could not legally accept crowdfunding to make it happen. The cost of sounding Big Ben, which is under repair, was estimated to be up to £500,000.

Lib Dem MEP Antony Hook launched a rival crowdfunding campaign to display a huge „We still love the EU“ banner on the white cliffs of Dover before January 31.