An online fundraising campaign, seeking to have Big Ben chime to welcome in Brexit at 11pm on January 31st, has raised more than £165,000. However, £500,000 is apparently required to arrange this during the current tower refurbishment.

A faceless bureaucrat in the House of Commons stated that, even if the £500,000 were reached, it wouldn’t be possible to accept the money: Any novel form of funding would need to be consistent with principles of propriety and proper oversight of public expenditure.

Many also believe that the £500,000 figure has been deliberately inflated by ‘remoaners’ still in denial about two votes for Brexit;
Brexit referendum and last December’s landslide win for the Conservatives with their ‘Let’s get Brexit done’ manifesto.

The good news is that if the campaign doesn’t reach £500,000 target or isn’t used, the fund will be donated to the worthy Help for Heroes charity.

There has been some talk of playing a recording of the Big Ben chimes – I think that would require a pretty large speaker system.

So what can be done?

My solution would be for LBC, a London-based national phone-in and talk radio station, to broadcast a recording of the chimes at 11pm on January 31st and encourage Londoners to tune in, open their windows and crank up the volume on their radios.

I’ve posted this idea and a link to this article on the LBC Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/LBC/

If enough people like it, then maybe it will happen. If you don’t use Facebook then you can send LBC a message here: https://www.lbcnews.co.uk/contact/send-globals-newsroom-your-story/

Big Ben facts and figures

Big Ben is the name of bell which is part of the Great Clock in the Elizabeth Tower.
The bell weighs 13.7 tonnes and the Elizabeth Tower stands 96m (315ft) tall.
When working, it strikes an E note every hour, and every 15 minutes four ‘quarter bells’ chime.
During the tower refurbishment, the chimes are stopped by locking the striking hammers. They will be locked until 2021 except for perhaps New Year’s Eve and Remembrance Sunday.