Britain officially departs the EU at 11 p.m. local time Friday, midnight in Brussels.
ADVERTISEMENTIt's Brexit Day and the party that has relentlessly campaigned for it is celebrating.
Brexit Party MEPs on Friday left the EU Parliament in Brussels for the last time, playing bagpipes and holding the Union Jack.
Britain officially departs the EU at 11 p.m. local time Friday, midnight in Brussels. The departure comes three years after the country voted by a margin of 52%-48% to walk away from the club that it had joined in 1973.
It's the first time a country has left the EU.
The Brexit Party has planned more festivities this evening, with patriotic songs and speeches in London's Parliament Square. Euronews will be live at the event.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is to meet in the morning with his Cabinet in the pro-Brexit town of Sunderland, in northeast England. He is scheduled to deliver a televised address to the country an hour before departure, calling Brexit ``not an end but a beginning.''
According to his office, he will describe it as ``a moment of real national renewal and change.''
The government hopes the moment will be marked in a dignified, nontriumphalist fashion, with red, white and blue lights illuminating government buildings and a countdown clock projected onto the prime minister's 10 Downing Street residence.