Last bongs for Big Ben as four-year repairs begin

– Brexit bongs? –

Andrea Leadsom, the Leader of the House of Commons, held emergency talks on Friday with Speaker John Bercow, who chairs the Commons panel that approved the measures.

The commission has agreed to meet next month to review whether the bongs can be heard on certain exceptional days.

Under current plans, the bell would still ring on occasions such as Remembrance Sunday in November, which commemorates Britain’s war dead, and New Year’s Eve.

Three MPs from May’s Conservative Party are calling for the clock to be back in action on the eve of March 29, 2019, when Britain is due to leave the European Union.

“It would be very fitting if Big Ben was to chime us out of the EU. We need to go out with a boom as we regain a sovereign parliament once again,” said MP Andrew Bridgen.

The 96-metre (315-foot) tower is the most photographed building in Britain. The renovation is estimated to cost £29 million ($37 million, 32 million euros).

But politicians have claimed that when they agreed to the work, they did not know the chimes would be silenced for four years.

A YouGov poll published Saturday found that 44 percent of Britons believe Big Ben should be silenced during the renovations, except for special occasions, while 41 percent said it should operate as normal.

Some MPs have suggested the bell could ring outside of the conservation team’s working hours.

But the House of Commons said that starting and stopping the clock takes about half a day, and that this would be neither practical nor “a good use of public money”.