Flags and speeches outside the Houses of Parliament

[By James Hobbs in London] The UK should have left the European Union today, 29 March 2019, but it hasn’t worked out like that. We still don’t know when that may be – 12 April? 22 May? – or even if it may happen at all. May may have resigned in a matter of days, or May may not. “May”, in all its senses, has been hanging over us for years. As each new twist has unfolded, the BBC Parliament channel has become our regular evening viewing, a political drama with no sign of a happy ending. The atmosphere outside parliament is electric and expectant, as leading characters from all sides head by foot between the temporary TV studios and the Palace of Westminster across the road.

On Saturday’s march for a second referendum (also drawn by Lis Watkins) what was particularly striking, apart from the huge turnout of an estimated 1 million plus, was the easygoing politeness. There was passion and strong views, but expressed with wit and often understated humour (Fromage, not Farage, and Make Politics Boring Again read two of the handmade banners) and with police keeping such a low profile they were practically invisible. The nation may have lost its marbles, but not yet its manners.

The final speaker in Parliament Square at the end of the march, drawn here against a backdrop of the Palace of Westminster and looked over by a statue of the 19th-century prime minister Sir Robert Peel, was by a veteran Conservative, Michael Heseltine. It can be hard to find yourself on the same side as someone who you have generally disagreed with for your entire political life, but that’s where we are. The solution to this self-inflicted mess, if there is one, is going to have to come from some unlikely place.