Thousands sign up for Dutch Brexit beach party on 31 October ’to watch Britain as it closes itself off’ | The Independent
▻https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/brexit-day-beach-party-dutch-netherlands-amsterdam-wijk-aan-zee-a9072
’It will be a nice goodbye to a good friend who is going on an exciting adventure, but is perhaps not too bright’
The wine will be French, the beer will be German and the music will be a band playing Vera Lynn’s wartime classic We’ll Meet Again.
Thousands of people have signed up for a Brexit Day beach party in a Dutch village which looks across the North Sea.
Revellers will be able to, quite literally, wave to the UK as it leaves the EU on 31 October.
“It will be a nice goodbye to a good friend who is going on an exciting adventure, but is perhaps not too bright,” party organiser Ron Toekook told the Netherlands-based news agency ANP.
More than 7,000 people on Facebook had already signed up to partake in the celebration in the coastal village of Wijk aan Zee near Amsterdam at the time of writing. Another 52,000 had expressed an interest.
Mr Toekook said the main activities at the party would be “sitting in a deck chair with Dutch chips, French wine and German beer, watching Britain as it closes itself off”.
He added: “If there is enough interest, a band can come and play It’s Quiet Across The Street and We’ll Meet Again.”
He said the party would be a natural way to mark the rearranging of ties between the UK and the Netherlands which will inevitably come in the wake of the divorce.
But one user pointed out that, given how closely the two countries’ economies are intertwined, the Dutch may wake up with their own Brexit hangover if no deal is reached before exit day.