There is no small topic for brexiters. In recent days, Conservative MP Mark François, a prominent Eurosceptic, has chosen a new fight: he calls for the exceptional return to service of Big Ben for Brexit. "Big Ben should bong for Brexit", he said last week, clapping all the words, in one of the debates preceding the vote at third reading in the House of Commons on Withdrawal Agreement Deal, the text transposing the divorce with the European Union (EU) into British law.
Big Ben, the huge clock installed at the top of the Elizabeth Tower, flanking the Palace of Westminster, is a bit like London what the Eiffel Tower is in Paris: an icon. Its famous chime, broadcast on all national channels to mark the passages to the new year, stopped resonating on August 21, 2017, at noon, when it was decided to renovate the tower and its mechanism, in service for almost one hundred and sixty years. The works should last until 2021. Then Prime Minister Theresa May was moved that the clock in Gothic style so emblematic is "Silenced for four years".
£ 500,000
However, it has appeared in recent days that its early – and very temporary – return to service would be excessively expensive. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker of the House of Commons, confirmed on Tuesday 14 January that it would cost British taxpayers up to £ 500,000 (about 585,000 euros) just to sound eleven strokes at 11 p.m. on January 31, the time at which Brexit will take place very formally (midnight in Brussels).
The parliamentary committee in charge of the Palace of Westminster has ensured that part of the belfry, which has already been dismantled, will have to be replaced exceptionally, which would cost at least 120,000 pounds sterling (140,400 euros). To this should be added the costs related to the temporary halt of other work to restore the tower (100,000 pounds per week). "The parliamentary officials clearly do not want to make an effort", deplored Mark François at the BBC microphone on Tuesday, recalling that Big Ben had nevertheless exceptionally sounded in 2018 for the centenary of the 1918 armistice.
The matter is more serious than it seems: should we celebrate Brexit? The brexiters' camp already has the answer, but Prime Minister Boris Johnson seems more concerned, since his impressive victory in the general elections in December, to reunify the country than to divide it again. Did he not say, also on the BBC microphone on Tuesday morning, that Brexit was the subject "That he preferred the least", he who had hardly talked about that except last fall?
Would he have found the solution to satisfy the requirements of his brexiters camp without further annoying the remainers? Johnson suggested Tuesday that Big Ben launch a public subscription via a crowdfunding platform. "Come on Boris!" So announce that Big Ben is going to ring! And show yourself (D-day) at Parliament Square (just across from Westminster) to greet this extraordinary date! " reacted Nigel Farage in the Daily Telegraph. Although marginalized in the last election, the boss of the Brexit Party could not remain silent on a similar blow.
Our selection of articles to understand Brexit
- Boris Johnson has masterfully succeeded, Corbyn has suffered a debacle: the lessons of an historic election which will allow the Prime Minister to achieve Brexit on January 31, 2020.
- Six months after the British Parliament's refusal to ratify the Theresa May and European Union Brexit deal, a new deal has been negotiated by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
- This text, which repeats the essence of the "withdrawal agreement" in November 2018, notably removes the existence of the "backstop" at the border between the two Irish. Here are the key points.
- Understand: the diagram that summarizes the possible options (dated October 2019), while parliamentarians must validate the agreement of Boris Johnson to formalize the divorce between the United Kingdom and the European Union.
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