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The dreaded chaos predicted on the eve did not happen, at least for now. Day 1 of the post-Brexit era: inaugurated on the edge of Big Ben at midnight of the year beginning with Ivanov Shumeykov, the first truck driver to cross the English Channel under the sign of the UK’s farewell to the single market and the customs union. , crowning the path started by the victory of ‘Leave’ in the June 2016 referendum and then by the formal divorce of Brussels at the end of 2019 – it passed without queues or serious setbacks. But the delays and inconveniences for trucks and goods only seem to be postponed for a few days, when traffic will resume at full capacity; while the passage of months will gauge the extent of the broader repercussions for the island and for the Conservative government of Boris Johnson: dealing immediately with the renewed secessionist demands of Scotland and, more marginally, with the tantrums of a Europhile father who he embarrasses him once again by asking for dual French nationality.
Those who waited for long queues on the road to Dover, and traffic jams near the stopovers of the Eurotunnel or the Channel ports similar to those registered on the occasion of the closing of the borders by France in the days before Christmas due to Covid, they had to change their minds. . Accomplices on the first day of the new year and contraction in transport also due to the choice of several British companies that have preferred to suspend services in the first part of January, pending greater clarity on the new customs controls. Because if the introduction of tariffs, tariffs and quotas were avoided, the post-Brexit agreement, reached on Christmas Eve between London and Brussels to regulate future commercial relations (and not only), could not avoid “substantial practical and procedural changes “on the movement of products, in the form of controls and accompanying documents. Bureaucratic measures that the UK has no intention of implementing for now, but which the EU introduces immediately, at a total administrative cost of around 8 billion euros per year borne by British exporters. And not without penalties for offenders ranging from fines of 350 euros to the prohibition of transit.
During the first weeks, in any case, a certain leniency in controls seems to be taken for granted, precisely to avoid worsening slowdowns, although unavoidable when transits return to normal levels. And at the same time avoid dangerous tensions with truckers from the island, who for the moment must undergo mandatory anti-Covid tests at the border: in the context of a country hit these days by the spread of the so-called ‘English variant’ . of the coronavirus, from an alarming increase in reported infections to an average of around 50,000 per day, from new shadows of overcrowding in some hospitals.
But if on the transportation front the government can breathe a temporary sigh of relief, it is the integrity of the Kingdom that is topical again (among other future unknowns looming over sectors such as the City’s financial services, immigration, personalities, universities, the music industry, the sports business or police cooperation) after the latest threatening tweet from Scottish independence prime minister and SNP nationalist leader Nicola Sturgeon. “Scotland will be back soon, Europe. Keep the lights on,” Sturgeon wrote, accompanying his proclamation with the provocative photo of ‘Europe-Scotland’ projected on New Year’s Eve on the facade of the Commission’s headquarters in Brussels. A challenge destined to take place already at the return of the British administrative elections in May, when the local Parliament of Edinburgh will also be renewed; And in the event of a clear SNP victory, the tone of the demand for a new referendum for the secession of London from the northern nation, much more anti-Brexiteer than England, will surely rise after the one lost in 2014.
An additional concern for BoJo, who has indeed taken the Kingdom out of the EU, but in the meantime must also suffer another small personal ‘affront’ from his father Stanley, always pro Remain, as well as half of his family, who announced in close to wanting to request a second French passport by virtue of the birthplace of his mother (Boris’s paternal grandmother). “I will always be European,” said Stanley, an 80-year-old former Conservative MEP, obviously indifferent to the supposed new freedoms evoked by his son outside Club dei 27. Like the one that came into force just at this time, which marks the abolition abroad VAT (VAT) on sanitary napkins and other feminine hygiene products: despite the minimum 5% tax provided for now by community regulations.
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