Saturday, October 14th 2017
A sea of blue and gold flags surrounded the Brian Clough statue on Saturday (October, 14) afternoon as several hundred people turned out to the Nottingham-leg of a UK-wide rally.
Twelve Stop Brexit protests, one for each European Parliament constituency in the country, were organised by grassroots activists The 48% to simultaneously take place in cities across Britain including Bristol, Newcastle and London.
The Nottingham rally took place at Speaker's Corner between 2pm and 5pm and included speeches from the likes of Kat Boettge, Joan Pons-Laplana, Gerhard Lohmann-Bond, Mathew Hulbert, Michael Mullaney, Tony Simpson, Hugo Dixon, Julia Cambridge, Viv Pointon, Cameron Clack and George Smid Chair of the East Midlands Regional Branch.
Entertainment was provided by Boris Johnson lookalike Faux BoJo and there was also a collection of old pound coins - which cease to be legal tender tomorrow - to be distributed to NHS charities in the East Midlands.
Gemma Knowles, of The 48%, and a co-ordinator of the regional rallies, said: “Rallies and marches have already been held in London, Bournemouth, Brighton and Manchester so we felt the East Midlands should have one, too."
The event was organised and hosted by the Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire branches of the European Movement, Two grassroots organisations that are part of 126 European Movement groups within the UK.
The Chair of the Nottinghamshire branch of the European Movement Prof. David Childs, welcomed the crowd to Nottinfgam with his opening speech.
Faux Bojo -Guest Compere
We were lucky enough to lure an amazing compere for the event, dragged from his London home in the shape of Faux Bojo the irrepressible Boris Johnson lookalike and entertainer.
Speakers
Kat Boettge
Cllr Kat Boettge has been a prominent Green Party representative in Nottingham and the East Midlands for some time and has been known to fight in various campaigns. Originally from Germany, Kat has lived in Nottingham for 17 years. She is a single parent and works as a psychotherapist.
She has held many posts in the Green Party and has been a Town Councillor in Kimberley. In 2016 she was selected to be the Green Party’s lead East Midlands candidate for the 2019 European Elections (should they take place), and was a very outspoken campaigner to remain in the EU, during the referendum. Earlier that year she took part in a one-off "Wife Swap: Brexit Special" on Channel 4.
Julia Cambridge
A no-nonsense, proactive campaigner Julia Cambridge has stood for parliament in the last two general elections.
As a Liberal Democrat she found her Liberal roots aged eleven delivering leaflets for her council candidate mother.
During her career in textiles and fashion she saw the benefit of free trade partnerships between the U.K. and the rest of Europe.
When agreeing to take part she said "Leaving the EU will cost us jobs, damage the economy, threaten our safety and security, and much more. We will, as a country, be poorer, not just in our standard of living but in our diversity. Brexit is looking like a disaster and I will continue to fight it".
Cameron Clack
Cameron studied Computing and is currently studying towards a masters degree in politics at an East Midlands University. He is a member of the Labour Party and a founder member of the Lincolnshire branch of the European Movement. His EU based campaigning started with the referendum of 2016, where he campaigned with Stronger In, in his hometown of Stamford Lincolnshire.
Joan Pons-Laplana
Transformation nurse and NHS nurse of the year at James Paget University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in Great Yarmouth.
A Spanish National, Joan came to the UK 17 years ago to pursue his dream of becoming a nurse and has worked for the NHS ever since - He has written regularly for the Huffington Post and tweets as @RoaringNurse
Gerhard Lohmann-Bond
Chair/Coordinator East Midlands Green Party. Gerhard came to the UK in 1977 originally only intending to stay a few weeks, but ended up making this country his home.
After reading environmental studies, geography, and urban planning studies in London he worked as a translator and interpreter mainly in the City of London. When the first of his two sons were born Gerhard and his wife decided that he should stay at home to look after him and pick up his translating career again once his son was at secondary school.
However Gerhard returned to his environmental studies, which eventually led him to join the Green Party, for which he has been active since. He campaigned with Another Europe Is Possible during the referendum campaign and since then for the British people's democratic right to change their minds on its result.
Hugo Dixon
Hugo Dixon is a journalist, entrepreneur, and campaigner. He is Chairman of InFacts and also co-founder of CommonGround. He founded Breakingviews in 1999, which he chaired until it was sold to Thomson Reuters in 2009.
He writes columns for Reuters, Breakingviews, The Guardian, and other publications.
He is also author of The In/Out Question: Why Britain should stay in the EU and fight to make it better.
Mathew Hulbert
Mathew Hulbert is an active member of and campaigner for the Liberal Democrats.
He was a Borough Councillor in Hinckley and Bosworth in Leicestershire from 2011 to 2015. He is also a prominent campaigner for further LGBT+ rights and equality.
Mr. Hulbert graduated with a BA (Hons) in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University in 2002 and worked as a journalist with a group of commercial radio stations in the Midlands from 2004 to 2009. He is an occasional contributor to the pro-EU national newspaper The New European. He tweets via @HulbertMathew
Michael Mullaney
Michael Mullaney is the Leicestershire County Councillor for Hinckley De Montfort Division.
Michael stood as Lib Dem parliamentary candidate for Bosworth in 2010, 2015, and 2017 elections. Each time Michael secured the largest Lib Dem vote in the East Midlands.
At the 2017 election he got the highest vote of any Lib Dem candidate in the 105 seats in the entire Midlands. Michael is an active campaigner in Hinckley and is currently campaigning to save the local Hospital which is was under threat.
Viv Pointon
Viv who campaigned in Stamford during the referendum is a member of the Labour Against Brexit team.
Tony Simpson
Tony Simpson graduated from Nottingham University in 1975 with a degree in Russian. He used his Russian for his Masters's degree at Oxford, where he studied Russian and East European History at St Antony’s College.
In 1980, Ken Coates invited him to join the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation to work on the European Nuclear Disarmament campaign, which helped give rise to the Intermediate Nuclear Forces agreement of 1987 and the dismantling of the Berlin Wall