Big Ben and the White Cliffs of Dover featured prominently on the front pages of the national newspapers today.
The Daily Telegraph adopts a jubilant tone, with a picture of Boris Johnson under a Churchillian headline of “This is not an end, but a beginning”.
The Daily Mail hails it as a “new dawn for Britain”, The Sun says the nation’s course will change for the better, and the Daily Express is also euphoric.
EXPRESS: Yes, we did it #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/lCjAdgdnti
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) January 30, 2020
Former Sun editor David Yelland wrote on Twitter that today is the “greatest day, or one of them, in the history of these Brexit papers.
“They won, we lost.
“Now we have to hope they were right after all.”
Today’s is the greatest day, or one of them, in the history of these Brexit papers. They won, we lost. Now we have to hope they were right after all. pic.twitter.com/taUR0l4O7p
— David Yelland (@davidyelland) January 31, 2020
Elsewhere the Independent carries the word for “goodbye” in a multitude of European languages, but ponders whether it is “inevitable” Britain will one day rejoin the EU.
Metro opts for a simple “Thank EU and goodbye”, while the i calls it the UK’s “leap into the unknown”.
And The Guardian strikes a distinctly downbeat tone, with a headline of “Small Island” over a story about “the biggest gamble in a generation”.
Guardian front page, Friday 31 January 2020: Small island pic.twitter.com/P1xYAy0h9d
— The Guardian (@guardian) January 30, 2020
And the Financial Times plays it straight and perhaps sums all other papers up with a headline: “Britain bows out of the EU with a mixture of optimism and regret”.
Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror leads with the coronavirus and the evacuation flight taking Britons from Wuhan.
And the Daily Star‘s front page heralds a “truly historic” day for Britain – the end of Dry January.
Related: Lord Dubs: PM has betrayed child refugees, but we can’t give up on them