LONDON (AP) – As a divorced couple still living together, Britain and the European Union spent 2020 arguing and wondering if they can stay friends.
On Thursday, the UK is finally moving. At 11 p.m. London time – midnight at the EU headquarters in Brussels – Britain will economically and practically leave the bloc of the 27 countries, 11 months after the formal political departure.
After more than four years of Brexit political drama, the day itself is something of an anti-climax. UK lockdown measures to curb the coronavirus have curtailed massive rallies to celebrate or mourn the moment, though Parliament’s massive Big Ben bell will ring the hour as it prepares to ring in the new year.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson – for whom Thursday is the fulfillment of his promise to “Get Brexit Done” – said the day “marks a new beginning in our country’s history and a new relationship with the EU as their greatest ally. “
“This moment has finally arrived and now is the time to seize it,” he said after the UK Parliament overnight approved a trade deal between the UK and the EU, the final formal hurdle on the UK side to departure .
It has been 4 1/2 years since Britain voted in a referendum to leave the bloc it had joined in 1973. The UK left the EU’s political structures on January 31, 2020, but the effects of that decision have yet to be felt. The UK’s economic relationship with the bloc remained unchanged during an 11-month transition period ending Thursday.
Afterwards, Britain leaves the EU’s vast single market and customs union – the biggest economic change the country has seen since World War II.
A free trade agreement concluded on Christmas Eve after months of tense negotiations will ensure that Britain and the EU with 27 countries can continue to trade goods without tariffs or quotas. That should help protect the 660 billion pounds (894 billion dollars) of annual trade between the two sides and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that depend on it.
But businesses are faced with piles of new paperwork and expenses. Merchants are struggling to handle the new rules imposed by a 1,200-page deal agreed just a week before the changes take place.
The English Channel Port of Dover and the Eurotunnel passenger and cargo route are fearful of delays, although the pandemic and the holiday weekend mean that there will be less canal traffic than usual. The vital supply route was disrupted for days after France closed the border to British truck drivers for 48 hours last week in response to a rapidly spreading variant of the virus identified in England.
The UK government insisted that “the border systems and infrastructure we need are in place and that we are ready for the UK’s new start”.
But freight companies hold their breath. British transport company Youngs Transportation is suspending its services to the EU from Monday to January 11 “to sort things out”.
“We think it will give the country a week or so to get used to all these new systems in and out and we can take a look and hopefully fix any issues before actually shipping our trucks,” said Youngs CEO Rob Hollyman .
The services sector, which makes up 80% of the UK economy, does not even know what the rules will be for business with the EU in 2021 – many details have yet to be worked out. Months and years of further discussion and discussion of everything from fair competition to fishing quotas lie ahead as Britain n the EU settle into their new relationship as friends, neighbors and rivals.
Hundreds of millions of individuals in Britain and the bloc also face changes in their daily life. After Thursday, British and EU citizens will lose the automatic right to live and work in the territory of the other. From now on, they will have to follow immigration rules and get work visas. Tourists don’t need visas for short trips, but new headaches – from travel insurance to pet paperwork – are still looming for Brits visiting the continent.
For some in Britain, including the Prime Minister, it is a moment of pride, a regaining of the national independence of a huge Brussels bureaucracy.
Conservative lawmaker Bill Cash, who has been campaigning for Brexit for decades, said it was a “victory for democracy and sovereignty.”
For others it is a time of loss.
Roger Liddle, a Labor Party member of the House of Lords opposition, said Brexit separated Britain from “the most successful peace project in history”.
“Today is a victory for toxic nationalist populism over liberal, rule-based internationalism and it is a very bad, and for me very painful day,” he said.
That sentiment was echoed by the French Minister of Europe, Clément Beaune.
“It is a day that will be historic, it will be sad,” he told broadcaster LCI.
“But we also have to look to the future. There are a number of lessons to be learned from Brexit, starting with lies, I think, that have been told to the British. And we’ll see that what was promised – some kind of total freedom, a lack of restrictions, of influence – I don’t think will happen. “
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John Leicester in Le Pecq, France, contributed to this story.
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