Marchin' again

Six months on from the last anti-Brexit demonstration, time to take to the streets again. Same route - Marble Arch, Park Lane, Hyde Park Corner, Pall Mall, Trafalgar Square, Whitehall, Westminster. Similar circumstances - on 23 March, it was seven days from the then-Brexit deadline; today it's 11 days before the third deadline for leaving the EU. We shall see.

Estimates for the numbers on this march range from the BBC's 'tens of thousands' (ridiculous, just look at the photos) to 'two million'. If the agreed number for the last march was finally reckoned to have been 1.0m to 1.1m, my own guesstimate as a participant in both would be in the 1.4m to 1.5m range.

Left: this banner is crucial in its insight: suddenly, you realise that 'nobody born this century voted for Brexit'. Yes! Of course! And yet it is precisely those born this century that would be suffering from having their wings clipped by this monumental act of folly. Those who have come of voting age this month were just 14 when the referendum happened. And during that time, some 900,000 people who voted Leave have died.

Right: literally the only anti-EU placard I saw all day. Well, there was a chap in a Nigel Farage mask sitting in the Garfunkel's by Trafalgar Square with a sign reading 'Losers! Go Home' - I think few even noticed him. However, this guy in a pixie outfit was harder to overlook. He was standing on a stepladder in the middle of Piccadilly with a sign denouncing the EU as 'the Beast of Revelation Chapter 17'. I think he just needs a friend.

Below: I like this banner as it puts Brexit into a global perspective - a power-play in which Britain is carved up between kleptocrats and plutocrats.

Policing was heavier than in March. Two helicopters were deployed this time. Yet just as in March, the demonstration was entirely peaceful.

This time last year:
Ealing and West Ealing memories

This time five years ago:
The autumn sublime in Jeziorki

This time six years ago:
Enduring Ealing - Victorian and Edwardian klimats

This time seven years ago:
Krokowa, Poland's former northern borderlands

This time 12 years ago:
Aerial photograph of Central London