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Boris Johnson has described the extra-bureaucratic obstacles to business due to Brexit as a tragic reality of leaving the European Union that his government hoped to reduce. Speaking as British authorities prepare for the first real test this week of their systems to minimize disruption to the border, the prime minister said he had always made it clear that there would be changes when the transition period ended.
“I mean, the tragic reality of business life is that there is a certain bureaucracy. We are trying to eliminate it, but we have a great opportunity to expand our horizons and think globally and think big, ”he told the BBC.
Light traffic in ports helped ensure there were few delays or problems at Britain’s borders in the first three days of the new customs and regulatory agreements. But authorities expect some disruptions this week as trucks begin to cross the English Channel in greater numbers.
Former Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Sunday that the freedoms that Brexit returned to Britain were of little value and that the country would be in trouble unless the government used leaving the EU as an opportunity to make tough decisions.
‘Shock therapy’
“The only way I make sense of Brexit is by treating it as shock therapy, which then we realize that we have to make certain important decisions as a country, we have to set a new agenda for the future, but that’s going to be hard to do, ”he told Times Radio.
“The truth of the matter is these so-called European regulatory freedoms that Brexit is supposed to give us, they don’t really give us anything at all. Because the truth is that decisions for Britain depend on and have always been in the hands of the British people and the British government they choose. But what it means, if we continue to have the same old political debate after Brexit that we had before Brexit, we are in a lot of trouble as a country. “
Scotland’s Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon has vowed to bring an independent Scotland back to the EU, but Johnson suggested that a second independence referendum should have to wait while Britain waited for its second vote on EU membership.
‘No joyous events’
“In my experience, referendums, direct experience in this country are not particularly joyous events. They do not have a remarkable unifying force in the national mood. It should only be once in a generation, ”he said.
“We had a referendum in 1975, then we had another in 2016. That seems to be the right kind of gap. What about that?”
Scottish National Party Deputy Leader Keith Brown described the prime minister’s comments as “incoherent bragging”, accusing him of trying to deny democracy.
“Even his American friend Donald Trump has learned that if you try to stand in the way of the democratic election of a nation, you are swept away. The people who will decide our future are the people of Scotland, not Boris Johnson and the Westminster Tories, ”Brown said.
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