TV pictures of the concert, conducted by Sakari Oramo from Finland, showed large numbers of EU flags being flown inside the Albert Hall alongside union flags and flags from Germany, Sweden, Japan and beyond. In some cases concertgoers held union flags and EU flags together as they sang along to Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No 1 and Parry’s Jerusalem. TV pictures from parallel concerts in Hyde Park, Glasgow, Enniskillen and Swansea, where there were no comparable EU flag campaigns, showed notably fewer EU flags. Before the concert the BBC and the Royal Albert Hall had resisted calls from some pro-leave groups calling for EU flags to be removed from concertgoers. A BBC spokesman said: “The BBC Proms is a music platform, not a political one, with the Last Night of the Proms offering a celebration of two months of extraordinary music making.

Source: The Guardian September 10, 2017 15:45 UTC