Four years after a split Brexit vote, the UK formally leaves the EU | Brexit News

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The UK has left one EU market and customs union as the Brexit saga enters a new chapter.

The United Kingdom has left the economic and political orbit of the European Union in a historic event that has politically divided Britons and marks the country’s largest movement on the global stage today.

As the 11pm clock struck London on Thursday (23:00 GMT), 31 December, the Brexit transition period came to an end and the UK exited one market and the group’s customs union.

Supporters say the move will free the country to seek new opportunities as an independent global power.

But critics say it is returning decades of unification with its closest neighbors and threatening to break up the UK, damage the country’s economy and reduce its international standing.

“This is an incredible time for this country,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in his message on New Year’s Eve. “We have the freedom in our hands and it is up to us to make the most of it. “

His tower is covered in scaffolding, Big Ben arrives 23:00 GMT, marking Britain’s formal exit from the European Union [Tolga Akmen/ AFP]

The landmark move on Thursday came more than four years after a narrow majority of Britons voted to abandon the EU in a controversial referendum in June 2016.

That vote sparked a political crisis in the UK that effectively ended the political careers of the two former Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron, who polarized the country, seeing an increase in xenophobia. and recalls a relationship with the bloc, the largest trading partner.

The relationship between London and Brussels will now be re-established under the terms of the recently adopted Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

In fact, it is a narrow free trade treaty surrounded by other agreements on a number of issues including energy, transport and police and security cooperation.

The agreement was finally broken a week ago, following months of false negotiations in the so-called “transition period”, which began after the UK formally withdrew from the EU in January.

The agreement puts an end to the prospect of a chaotic separation and ensures that goods can continue to travel between the UK and the EU without tariffs or quotas, making a smooth trade worth hundreds of billions of pounds – and euro – annually.

But London ‘s departure from Brussels’ s orbit will come despite a number of new rules and red tape for business.

The way British and Europeans live, work and travel between the country and the continent is also changing, with new visa rules coming into effect.

Some appeared in the last event. Arch Brexiteer Nigel Farage posted a picture of himself with a glass of wine and a cigarette on Twitter. “This is a great time for our country, a huge leap forward,” he wrote. Time to build glass. “

‘Keep the light on’

Others were less optimistic.

Outside the British embassy in Brussels on Thursday, around 20 British people kept watch by candlelight and sang the Scottish farewell song, Auld Lang Syne, to “mourn” leaving the UK.

“We’re sorry for the loss,” Jeremy Thomas, a West Yorkshire IT engineer who first moved from Wakefield to Belgium in 1972 and returned in 2002 with his family, told Reuters news. “I have no word for what we are throwing away.”

Anti-Brexit campaigner outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh as the UK finally leaves the EU [Russell Cheyne/Reuters]
One of a group gathered to mark Brexit in Parliament Square in London [Hannah McKay/Reuters]

The bitter debate over Brexit has also weakened the union of nations that make up the UK, with support for independence re-emerging in Scotland, where there was strong support for staying on the side of the UK. inside the European Union.

Scottish leader Nicola Sturgeon has said a referendum on independence should be held early in the next term of the devolved parliament. In the last vote in 2014, the country voted to stay within the UK.

“Scotland will be back soon, Europe. Keep the light on, ”Sturgeon tweeted.

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