London, July 2 (IANS) Thousands of demonstrators marched through Central London on Saturday to protest against "Brexit" -- Britain's departure from the European Union (EU) -- and demanded that the country maintain close ties with the continent.
With banners and EU flags thousands of people, many of them non-British, marched from Park Lane to Parliament square, where they chanted slogans and condemned "Brexit", Efe news reported.
The event, organised by comedian Mark Thomas, promptly received the backing of thousands of people through social networks.
With banners calling to "Bremain" -- the opposite of "Brexit" -- and "EU we love you", young demonstrators and families with small children joined the march which passed close to Downing Street, the residence of British Prime Minister David Cameron, and continued on to nearby Parliament Square.
According to the organisers, some 40,000 people joined the march, which was organised nine days after the historic referendum whereby 46 million Britons voted either to remain or leave the EU.
Thomas said that the success of the march proved "the anger, the frustration and the need to do something".
"We would have accepted the result if it had been debated in a fair manner. However, there was a lot of information missing and people needed to do something to avoid the frustration," said Thomas.
Bill Baker, 59, and his daughter Jess, 22, both residents of the London borough of Islington brought a banner that read "EU, we will always love you".
"We didn't want to leave (the EU) but even if one abides the outcome of the referendum, which we should, we would still want a Britain that remains focused on Europe," Baker told to the British press.
Another demonstrator, Phillipa Griffin, 40, holding a French flag admitted feeling "shocked" by the voting results and by the "lies" that surrounded the campaign that, in her opinion, have divided the country.
"One feels that our country has already changed," she added.
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