A controversial anti-Brexit group hijacked the White Cliffs of Dover before dawn today and beamed a pro-European Union film in English, French and German on to its famous chalk face to display a 32,000 sq ft ‘message to Europe’ that Britain will rejoin the bloc ‘before long’.
Protest group Led by Donkeys filmed two Second World War veterans called Sid Daw, 95, and Brigadier Stephen Goodall, 97, who both describe their grief as the UK leaves the EU at 11pm tonight.
The guerrilla video, apparently projected from a boat below the cliffs, ends with the stars on the EU flag slowly disappearing – with just one star remaining, the line reads: ‘This is our star. Look after it for us.’
Mr Daw, who was a sniper for the Allies, introduces the video and says: ‘This is a message from the White Cliffs of Dover, from Britain’. Mr Daw, from Cardiff, fought in France, Holland, Belgium and Germany during the conflict.
He says: ‘First of all, I’m Welsh, and I’m British, and I’m European and I’m a human being. I feel very, very sad about it all because we don’t know which way things are going.’
Protest group Led by Donkeys filmed two Second World War veterans including Welsh veteran Sid Daw, 95, and introduces the video beamed on to the famous cliffs, saying: ‘This is a message from the White Cliffs of Dover, from Britain’
Mr Daw, who fought as a sniper in the Second World War, says of the EU: ‘We want to be together and we will be together before long, I’m sure’
Appealing to fellow Europeans on the Continent, he said: ‘Look from your side to this side, see these white cliffs, and we’re looking across at you feeling we want to be together and we will be together before long, I’m sure.’
Brigadier Goodall spoke of his sadness about Brexit – with his words translated into French and German.
The 97-year-old, who served in the Army for 32 years, said: ‘I feel really depressed at the idea that we are leaving Europe because it has meant so much to me.
‘I like to be called a European. And the feeling that one has of comradeship as one goes round Europe is really quite something.’
He added: ‘At my age I shan’t be living much longer but I hope that, for the sake of my children and my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren, that England, Britain will move back to be much closer to Europe than what we have done now.’
Brigadier Stephen Goodall says he is depressed about ‘leaving Europe’ having helped liberate the continent from the grip of Hitler’s Nazis
It ends ends with the stars on the EU flag slowly disappearing – with just one star remaining, the line reads: ‘This is our star. Look after it for us’
The message was shown just after midnight today so as to be seen on Brexit Day itself. Ben Stewart, 45, one of the organisers from Led By Donkeys, said that the group wanted to do something to mark the day.
Brigadier Stephen Goodall (right) with a German colleague during his time at the Royal School of Military Engineering
He said: ‘It was a real honour to put their words up there. We really want people in Europe to know that the display that they saw of a kind of crass Nigel Farage and Brexit Party MEPs goading the European Parliament is not the country that we live in and not the country that we love.
‘There seems no better choice of people for the nation that we are than Steve and Sid’.
The pro-Remain activists, founded by four friends Mr Stewart, James Sadri, Oliver Knowles and Will Rose, have crowdfunded tens of thousands of pounds from Remain supporters to ‘vent their frustration’ about leaving the EU.
The majority of the Led by Donkeys cash was spent erecting billboards featuring the quotes of Brexiteers such as Nigel Farage, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Gove.
The group also projected Boris Johnson depicted as ‘criminal’ holding a ‘liar’ sign on to the Houses of Parliament last June and has now turned its attention to the White Cliffs of Dover as Brexit becomes a reality this evening.
But the controversial group was also accused of trying to interfere with last year’s EU elections with big spending on advertising during the campaign.
One billboard about claims Boris Johnson said ‘f*** business’ in relation to leaving the EU caused upset in Birmingham because it was put up near a school.