phil: barbara wesel in london, thank you. -- barbara wesel in london, thank you. cameron, former prime minister, wanted to whip the conservative wing of his party in line and the referendum was his chosen weapon, but it blew up in his face. >> legislation will be introduced to provide a referendum on membership in the european union before the end of 2017. correspondent: that single sentence in the queen's speech set off a process that would disrupt eu politics for years. david cameron, prime minister the time, introduced the referendum. he did not want written to leave the eu at all, he wanted to bring his party's many eu critics back into line. a month-long campaign followed. brags that hardliners sought to turn public opinion against europe with aggressive slogans and as would later become clear, lies. the date of the referendum was due 23rd, 2016, and the day after, >> this means that the u.k. has voted to leave the european union. >> the 23rd will go down in our history as our independence day. [applause] correspondent: prime minister camerin resigned and the

barbara wesel in brussels. thank you.: sports news now, in tennis dominic thiem has reached the semifinals of the austrian open after beating world number one rafael nadal. it was a tight match, but thiem eventually triumphed by three sets to one. the austrian won all three of his sets through tight breaks. -- tiebreak's. he now faces germany's alexander zverev for a place in sunday's final. there have reached the last four of the men's draw after beating 2014 champion stan wawrinka. the swiss veteran won the opening set, but zverev fought back to win by three sets to one to reach his first ever grand slam semifinal. after a short break i'll be back to take you through "the day." stick around for that. we'll be right back. ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] twenty four france twenty four .com. yeah me too 9e welcome to live from paris so will use a an ananalyss from france twenty four on marco in these of the main worl

we're joined now from brussels by barbara wesel — senior europe correspondent at deutsche welle.. as a funeral, it was first class, because so many participants broke down in tears, they were literally floods of tears. so much friendship and love has never been poured out in the european parliament throughout all these years. the new commission president said we will always keep loving you. the italian president of the parliament said, i will not say adios, i will say arrivederci, because that means you could eventually come back. and so on and so eventually come back. and so on and so forth. it really made the hairs on your neck stand up, you almost started to cry yourself because it wasjust heart—rending, started to cry yourself because it was just heart—rending, such started to cry yourself because it wasjust heart—rending, such an emotional moment after three and a half years of bitterness and so many ha rd half years of bitterness and so many hard words. whatever the words they use, whether it is au revoir or are due, the truth is, most meps must realise this is due. the cha