One of the European parliament’s union jacks will be sent to the EU museum in Brussels, a committee has decided, but Brexit party MEPs are to be denied a flag-lowering ceremony on 31 January.
Instead of the potentially dramatic scene of a union jack being lowered against the midnight sky when Britain leaves the EU on 31 January, parliament grounds staff will remove the flags without ceremony at an unconfirmed time.
One flag will then be despatched to the House of History, the EU-funded museum in Brussels that aims to tell the story of the continent, from ancient Greek myths to Brexit referendum promises.
Brexit party MEPs had lobbied for a flag-lowering ceremony, a Brussels analogue to the campaign to have Big Ben “Bong for Brexit” in London. Instead, the European parliament president, David Sassoli, will preside over a low-key ceremony with British MEPs on the evening of 29 January, shortly after the entire parliament votes on the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
All 73 British MEPs are invited and the heads of British political party delegations will be invited to say a few words. The MEPs are not expected to get the customary medal, handed out to departing members at the end of each legislature.
Senior MEPs decided on this approach at a meeting in Strasbourg that draws a line under the debate over how to mark Brexit day in the European parliament. The occasion “will be dignified, solemn”, said one parliament source. “It’s nothing to be happy about. The idea is just to thank [the MEPs] for their work. The idea is to be serene.”
The Brexit party had lobbied for a flag-lowering ceremony that evoked for them the last days of the British empire. “They don’t need to do it as a big formal ceremony, they don’t need drums or whatever, but they need to bring the flag down because we are not full members,” one of its MEPs, Nathan Gill, told the Guardian earlier this week. “It’s like that India moment, isn’t it, or Hong Kong. You know that’s the lasting image.”
The MEP for Wales, who plans to be in Brussels rather than attend Nigel Farage’s Brexit singalong at Westminster, said lowering the flag would be a symbolic moment. “That is going to be the actual point that everyone in Britain and Europe accepts the fact that we are gone.”
But parliament officials were reluctant to create this scene, a decision rubber-stamped by senior MEPs at a meeting on Thursday without discussion. The European parliament is also shaking up its UK work, as talks shift from the divorce to the future trade relationship.
The Brexit steering committee, led by the former Belgian prime minister Guy Verhofstadt, will be disbanded. A UK coordination group will be set up to keep 705 MEPs in line in negotiations over the most wide-ranging deal the EU will have ever negotiated with a foreign country.
One prominent member of the committee will be Nathalie Loiseau, a close ally of Emmanuel Macron, who leads the parliament’s sub-committee on security and defence. Joining her will be David McAllister, the German centre-right MEP with Scottish roots, who leads the parliament’s foreign affairs committee, as well as Bernd Lange, the German social democrat head of the international trade committee.
Earlier this week British MEPs were given the deadlines for clearing their offices, terminating staff contracts and returning equipment, such as EU passes, keys and iPads. Many British MEPs are not entitled to the European parliament’s redundancy payment, as they have served for less than a year. “People were upset,” said one source, who described the meeting as “bumpy”.
The departure of British MEPs will see the parliament reduced to 705 MEPs from 751 seats, with 27 British seats redistributed to 14 other countries currently under-represented in Brussels and Strasbourg.
