This comes as many feel that Britain's departure from the EU on Friday is somewhat subdued. Why are we not celebrating the fact that Brexit is finally being accomplished by the government? Journalist David Lindsay shares his thoughts about why the public lacks enthusiasm towards ‘Brexit Day’.
SPUTNIK: What do you think of the celebration or the lack of celebration plans from Westminster going into Brexit day?
David Lindsay: I'm not surprised. I mean, we must remember that most MPs, were never in favour of Brexit in the first place. In any case, as a leave voter myself, most people have been thoroughly sick of the whole subject for a very long time. I suspect most MPs are the same position, they just don't want to talk about it anymore. And they certainly don't want any major celebration of it.
SPUTNIK: What about the plan with Big Ben? What do you think the public's reaction was to that they would have to crowdsource money to get the 'bing bong' people were calling across the media?
David Lindsay: Well, they didn't crowdsource a great deal of money from a very great amount of people. It seems an odd thing to do, it happens to be being repaired at the moment, but that's not like a church bell or something. It's a clock. When it works. It bongs 24 times a day. There's nothing odd about Big Ben bonging except that it isn't at the moment because there's repair work going on. Getting Big Ben to bong for Brexit is a strange thing to want to do, actually.
SPUTNIK: In Scotland, there's debate today about the future of Scotland in regards to Independence. There's also a smaller issue that's being discussed and that’s the idea that Scotland will continue to fly the EU flag past Friday. What do you think of the idea of Scotland continuing to fly this flag even if never no longer a member of EU?
David Lindsay: Well Scotland is always odd isn't it anyway? You very rarely see the EU flag being flown in England or you never did. So it just becomes another of these peculiarities of Scotland if it continues to do that.
SPUTNIK: Now, do you think it's an act of maybe rebellion or maybe a show of intention for what Scotland wants in the future to keep playing this flag?
David Lindsay: Well, everyone knows the position of the SNP on these matters so it doesn't really come as any surprise I really don't see what effect it's supposed to have.
SPUTNIK: Given Brexit Day is Friday. We're not really going to be outside of the EU until this transition period is over. Do you imagine they'll be more formal celebrations once the transition is done and we are at actively outside of the EU.
David Lindsay: No, I wouldn't have thought so. I think most people would regard that as faintly absurd in the sense that this coming Friday is supposed to have been Brexit day. It will be interesting to see quite what happens during the transition period, but I don't see the ended of it being marked with very much at all.
SPUTNIK: Even this festival of Brexit that the government has spoken about a few times, you know, I think that will act as a sort of celebration?
David Lindsay: It will for the people who bothered to participate, I must emphasize I'm a Brexit supporter myself. But what is being discussed in relation to this 'Festival of Brexit' is largely ridiculous. It will be of interest to a very particular sort of Brexit supporter. It's a kind of hardcore, right-wing type of Brexit supporter will like what is being suggested for this festival of Brexit but it will pass most other people by.