Yesterday was quite an awesome day for the campaign to rejoin the EU. Not that you’ll hear anything about it in the news, but yesterday saw a huge march and rally up in Westminster. Truth be told, I didn’t know – or, rather, hadn’t remembered – it was happening until I saw a poster on Facebook at breakfast time, but I can get to central London fairly easily so I set off quite promptly after I got wind of it. It’s becoming clearer and clearer that Brexit is an utter catastrophe: it’s wrecking the economy, destroying the Tories, turning the UK into a laughing stock. It must be reversed, and if I can take part in the campaign to make that happen, then I must.

According to what I saw on the website, the march would begin outside the Dorchester Hotel at one. I simply had to take the Jubilee Line to Green Park, then probably ask for directions. Fortunately as soon as I got out of the tube station, I saw people carrying EU flags, so I just followed them: at that moment I could tell this was going to be big.

And it was. When I got to the Dorchester, there was already a huge gathering of people outside, all carrying either EU flags or placards with things like ‘Bollocks to Brexit’ written on them. It was very reassuring to see so many people who, like me, believe that rejoining the European Union is essential for the country’s future. Brexit robbed us of our rights as Europeans; the people I marched with yesterday want them back. There must have been forty to fifty thousand people there yesterday, all as furious as I am about the debacle of 2016. Most, it must be said, appeared to be middle aged and white; but there were people from all over the country there, carrying Welsh, Scottish and Cornish flags – they had obviously put far more effort into this than I had.

The march was peaceful, friendly and rather short, going from Park Lane, through Mayfair, down Whitehall and into Parliament Square. It just took a couple of hours or so. Then, in the Square, the rally began, with speeches by Guy Verhofstadt, Phill Moorhouse and Steve Bray among others. From where I was sat I couldn’t see much of the stage, but fortunately a large screen had been put up to make the speeches visible to everyone. They spoke about the damage Brexit is doing, politically and socially, as well as the possible routes we might take to rejoin the union.

I didn’t stay until the very end, but it was very reassuring to see the beginnings of a Rejoin Movement, which will, hopefully before long, see us take back our rightful place among our neighbours in the EU. I can’t help wondering what I might bring to it: I know I’m not much of a disability rights activist, but perhaps there are things from the disability rights movement which could be transferred to the rejoin movement. Both require direct action; both need us to demonstrate to others how we no longer have rights others do, and how things could be so much better if we convinced certain people to do certain things. Above all, both are about reclaiming rights we no longer have, which is why events like the one I went to yesterday are so important.