UK flag taken down at EU Council in Brussels ahead of Brexit hour

Britain's Union Jack was removed from a line of EU member state flags inside the European Council building in Brussels on Friday evening ahead of the U.K.'s exit from the bloc at midnight local time (2300 GMT). Britain will become the first country to quit the European Union after 47 years in the club, leaving 27 member states that will now regard it as a third country.

Two solemn-looking officials, a man, and a woman took less than a minute to take down the flag in the cavernous entrance to the Council, which represents member state leaders and sets EU policy. They took away the flagstand, folded the Union Jack twice into a rectangle and walked without comment out of a door.