Plans for a Brexit museum to be stepped up this autumn
Plans for a Museum of Brexit will be stepped up in the autumn, with members of the public urged to raid their cupboards for memorabilia.
Organisers are hoping to get hold of the 1975 pro-European flag jumper worn by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on the campaign trail and the pen used to sign the 1957 Treaty of Rome.
As the end of the transition period approaches, three locations in 10 Leave-voting areas have been earmarked as possible sites for the museum, the Mail on Sunday reported.
The museum’s website states: “Our plan is to bring together memories, stories and items that can help preserve our nation’s recent history. To recall, for future generations, the background of the recent struggle for the United Kingdom’s independence.”
It says the European Union reportedly spent £112 million to build its own Brussels museum, and that it would focus on “another side of the tale”.
The collection aims to “tell the story of the Eurosceptic Movement and its people across the decades” and is calling for people to donate items that may be useful artefacts.
The website features an appeal for people to look in their “collections, bottom drawers, shoeboxes, and troves” to find items to include in the museum and archive.
Exhibits chronicling Britain’s relationship with Europe could include everything from newspaper cartoons and pro-Brexit condoms to one of Nigel Farage’s suits.
Gawain Towler, a former Brexit Party spokesman, told the Mail on Sunday: “Things have been quiet, partially because we still had to fight for Brexit, and then we’ve had Covid.
“But as the country starts to wake up and it looks like we are finally approaching the exit door of the 40-year failed experiment, we are in a better position to look to the future without forgetting the past.”
He added that the project exists to remember the little people in pub meetings up and down the country who kept the flame of independence and sovereignty alive during the dark years.
Lord Lawson, the former Chancellor, has supported the museum and said: “The debate about the United Kingdom’s evolving relationship with its neighbours, and its place in the world, has been of critical national significance. We need to capture these records and stories for posterity.”
John Mills, the Brexit-backing home shopping tycoon, said: “The June 2016 EU referendum marks a crucial turning point in the UK’s history and it is surely right that it should be marked by bringing together a comprehensive collection of all the materials and artefacts used to fight.”
The museum aims to both provide a useful resource to academics as well as to “engagingly” inform members of the public through colourful displays.
Donors to the 2016 Leave campaign have been reportedly lined up to help fund the museum’s collection.
