gmt+1

In accordance with the provisions of Article 50, after forty-seven years of membership and a contentious three-and-half years of vigorous and at times unseemly and embarrassing debate, the UK will leave the European Union at 11:00 pm local time. The UK quits the EU with a standing invitation to rejoin, as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen concluded her speech to assembled MEPs during the last plenary session before Brexit Day with a quote from British poet George Eliot: “‘Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.’ We will always love you and we will never be far. Long live Europe!”