Image source, The Secret Place

In Liverpool, where 58% voted to remain, one group of neighbours are having an EUnity Party to celebrate 47 years of UK membership.

Melvin Lyons, who was born the year Britain entered the European Economic Community, has got together with neighbours and friends in the Wavertree district of the city to hold the event in a local restaurant.

“My wife is Finnish and a doctor in psychology at the University of Liverpool, while our children have dual nationalities,” he says adding: “We just wanted to do something to bring people together.”

“We have hired a restaurant owned by an Albanian and we are even having an EU-themed quiz,” Mr Lyons adds.

...and the countdown projected on Downing Street is up and running.

Image source, PA Media

In his message, Boris Johnson sets out some of the benefits of Brexit and what his government will do with the sovereignty that is being “recaptured” from the EU.

He talks about controlling immigration, doing free trade deals and “liberating” the UK’s fishing industry.

For many people, he adds, Brexit boils down to “making our laws and rules for the benefit of the people of this country”.

While the EU has “admirable qualities”, he says it has evolved over the last few decades in a way which the UK “now longer suits” the UK.

Referring to the 2016 referendum and the recent general election, he says: “That is a judgement that you, the people, have now confirmed at the polls, not once but twice.”

A video message recorded by Boris Johnson earlier has now been released.

For many people, he says the UK’s imminent departure is an “astonishing moment of hope, a moment they thought would never come”.

For others, there is a relief that the wrangling of the past three years is now over.

But he acknowledges that for others there is a real “sense of anxiety and loss” about what lies ahead.

The PM says his task now is to unite the country and “take us forward”.

Adapting a quote first used by his political hero Winston Churchill during World War Two, he says the moment of departure is “not an end but a beginning”.

“This is the moment when the dawn breaks and the curtain goes up on a new act in our great national drama.”

"We did it," shouts Ann Widdecombe as she takes to the stage outside Parliament.

The former Conservative minister turned Brexit Party politician says it is down to the Brexit Party that the UK will "wake up as a free country" on Saturday morning.

The Brexit MEP says the UK had sunk into a "morass" and it was her party, particularly Nigel Farage, who brought it back from the brink.

"I nearly gave up after seven months, Nigel has been at it for 25 years."

She says Brexit is not happening so that the UK will continue to follow EU rules, telling the crowd there will be "no level playing field" with the bloc.

"We do not need anyone to prop us up or to tell us what to do."

Kate Whannel
BBC News in Parliament Square

Rose, a Remain voter from London, is here with her partner Steven, a Leave voter originally from Ireland.

Although her side lost, she says she wanted to come because ”ultimately I think this is celebration of democracy”.

”I accept that I lost - but regardless of how I feel about democracy, it is important the vote is respected.

”Both sides can be reasonable."

”When you get off the internet most people are fine,” Stephen says.

”Twitter just inflames the debate."

The fun is now beginning in earnest in Parliament Square.

Brexit Party chairman Richard Tice is the first speaker on the stage, attempting to whip up the crowd by asking them "is anyone excited?"

He talks about the path to Brexit, saying it was a victory for the British people over the establishment and mainstream media. Democracy is the "winner here", he says.

He promises an evening of audience participation and "patriotic songs".

In that vein, the crowd bursts into a version of Land of Hope of Glory. Among the singers on stage is Brexit Party MEP Belinda de Lucy.

In a German pub in central London, EU citizens have gathered to mark the UK's departure.

Axel Anthony says the event is "a celebration of being European".

“We are still European...we will still be European tomorrow," he says.

However, Axel says there is also "anxiety" about the future amongst EU citizens in the UK.

“The government could have done more to inform people already," he says. "People are not well informed and people are fearful of what’s going to happen.”

Tanja Bueltmann also wants more reassurance.

“I would just like the words that are being spoken to actually mean something," she says.

"We are being told all the time that we’re friends and family but the system now doesn’t tell us that. So I would like to ask Boris Johnson tonight to mean what he says.”

The party is well and truly under way in Morley, West Yorkshire where Brexiteers are celebrating at an event hosted by Leave MP Andrea Jenkyns.

In the Morley and Outwood constituency, 60% of people voted to leave the EU in the referendum.

BBC Radio Leeds reporter, Kevin Larkin, is there...

Adam Fleming
Brussels reporter

If you were expecting a Hong Kong style handover like 1997 was, with fireworks, tears, the Royal Yacht Britannia...this is the total opposite.

What we’ve seen is a succession of British flags being lowered in quite drab circumstances.

It’s not a moment of big drama. That’s the policy - they don’t want this to look like a triumph or a disaster. They want it to be low key.

Kate Whannel
BBC News in Parliament Square

Brenda, from London, says she is elated.

”I’ve been waiting 40 years for this,” she says.

”It’s one of the best days of my life.”

BBC News Channel

Lib Dem MP Layla Moran has been at the pro-EU rally in Oxford we showed you some pictures of earlier.

She says the people there were "disappointed" and "reconciled to the fact [Brexit] is happening".

However, she says Remainers like her want "to keep fighting", with trade negotiations still to come and the "looming possibility of no deal" at the end of the year.

Kate Whannel
BBC News in Parliament Square

Jessie has come down from Norfolk on the megabus to be at the rally today.

She says she used to support the EU and even worked on campaigns to help MEPs get elected.

But the more she saw of the EU, the more disillusioned she felt, referring to its ”expansionist nature“.

“It’s like the laws of physics - expand, expand, eventually you will fall in on yourself."

But the real clincher she says was reading about children living in one parent families in Eastern Europe because the other had moved to richer European countries to find work.

"I realised I could be eating food picked by one of those parents," she says.

"No-one should benefit off the backs of the poor.“

She says she hopes remainers and Brexiteers will come together now and regrets the divisiveness of the last few years. ”I’ve been called a bigot and a gammon hostess,“ she says. ”But if you look around here we’re just normal people."

Former German ambassador to the UK, Peter Ammon, says he is "saddened" at the UK leaving the EU.

“Everything is quiet here in Berlin. I saw no parties or people dancing in the street," he tells the BBC.

He says the UK was "a voice of reason" in the EU.

"I think this was a good, important voice which we are now losing," he adds.

On the prospects for a future trade deal, Mr Ammon says: "I’m a bit pessimistic that we will achieve something substantial by the end of the year.

"But on the other hand I believe there’s such a strong interest in each others markets, shared interests not only in the economic field but also the political field. In the end it will bring us together."

There's a lot of Union Jacks flying tonight across the country but this might win the prize for being the largest.

It's on display at the big rally in Parliament Square.

Image source, Reuters

Kate Whannel
BBC News

Before the speeches start, they are playing a video of the road to Brexit.

Big cheers for Margaret Thatcher. And the crowd chant along to her famous "No No No" speech.

BIg boos for Tony Blair, big big cheers for Nigel Farage.

The large screen at the Parliament Square rally has finally kicked into life.

It is showing a short video about the UK's post-war journey to joining the Common Market, as it was called in 1973.

Politicians from that era who passionately opposed joining, such as Tony Benn and Barbara Castle, figure prominently.

Spooling forward 15 years, Margaret Thatcher's famous No, No, No comments from - when she rejected further European integration in a famous speech in the Commons in 1989 - is greeted with cheers by the crowd.

There's a Brexit party going on at the Butcher’s Arms in Old Leake near Boston in Lincolnshire tonight.

Boston recorded the highest Brexit vote in the 2016 referendum to leave the EU.

Image source, Reuters

The United States says the "special relationship" with the UK will "grow even stronger" thanks to Brexit.

Washington's ambassador to the UK, Woody Johnson, says President Donald Trump shared the UK's "optimism and excitement" about the next chapter in its history.

The diplomat argues the UK's departure from the EU will allow a transatlantic trade deal to be forged to "increase prosperity" and drive up jobs.

"On behalf of the United States government, I would like to wish the United Kingdom every success as you chart a new path outside of the European Union," he said.

"This is a special relationship which will endure, flourish and grow even stronger in this exciting new era which Britain is now beginning."

David Pittam
BBC News Online

Whilst many across the country are spending the evening celebrating - or commiserating - with like-minded voters, this couple is bridging the divide over a glass of (British) wine.

Barry Lewis, Conservative leader of Derbyshire County Council, voted to leave the EU. His wife of 20 years Katharine voted to remain.

He admitted they had disagreed over it from time to time but were both "relieved" to be able to "move forward".

Image source, Barry Lewis

He told the BBC: "We're both quietly toasting the occasion.

"We agree that whatever our differing views we need to get on with living and embrace the future. 23:00 marks something of a symbolic transition that needs quietly and respectfully noting."