Brexit: What has happened since January 31?

With the world affected by the coronavirus pandemic, it has been easy to lose sight of what is happening with Brexit. Big changes will take place from January 1, but the UK and EU are running out of time to agree on the new rules.

Here are nine highlights this year.

At 23:00 GMT on January 31

the UK officially left the EU, almost four years after the public vote took place.

Brexit supporters celebrated in London’s Parliament Square, while Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed to unite the country and “move us forward.”

But the UK did not immediately cut all ties with the EU. The UK entered a transition period which meant continuing to follow EU rules until December 31, 2020.

The transition was to give both sides a break while further talks between the UK and the EU take place. The outcome of these negotiations will determine the rules for the new relationship between the UK and the EU, including trade, which will begin on January 1, 2021.

New negotiations began in Brussels on March 2.

The leader of the talks for the UK was David Frost, who arrived with 100 advisers and government officials. At the opposite end of the table was Michel Barnier, the EU’s main Brexit negotiator.

The biggest problem was a trade deal, from trucks crossing borders to financial services rules. But there were many other things to discuss, such as cooperation on safety and drug safety.

Both sides say they want to avoid tariffs, which are taxes on goods that cross a border. But the UK wants to set all its own rules and the EU says it doesn’t want rule changes that mean the UK has an unfair advantage.

With the coronavirus crisis taking center stage, little progress was made with trade talks.

Two important points emerged:

Frustration was growing on both sides and on August 21, Barnier told a press conference that the possibility of a trade deal between the EU and the UK after Brexit “seems unlikely”, while Lord Frost said the EU he had made things “unnecessarily difficult.”

In a further sign that the talks were in trouble, Lord Frost told the Mail on Sunday that the UK was not afraid to leave and urged the EU to “take our position seriously”.

If the talks fail, the charges, known as tariffs, would apply to most products that UK companies ship to the EU. That could make UK products more expensive in the EU. Tariffs would also be introduced on EU products entering the UK.

Full border controls would also be needed and companies have expressed fear that this will cause long lines for trucks at ports and lead to a significant disruption to trade across the country.

Both parties want to continue trading without tariffs and not bring too many additional controls, but that will require a trade agreement. The UK also wants services, from accounting to education, included in any deal.

In September, the UK government proposed changes that it recognized would violate international law in “specific and limited ways.”

The Brexit deal negotiated in 2019, known as the Withdrawal Agreement, established new controls on goods traveling from Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This was to avoid checkpoints having to be placed along the Irish border after the transition was completed.

However, the UK government said it wanted to make changes to the previously agreed deal to bring clarity and avoid disruptions from 1 January.

In response, the EU announced that it had initiated legal proceedings against the UK. Despite this, the EU said it would not walk away from the trade talks.

A “historic moment” was how International Trade Secretary Liz Truss described the signing of the UK’s first major trade deal since it left the EU.

Brexit supporters said the deal with Japan showed that the UK could negotiate better deals than the EU and that others would follow.

Critics, however, said it was more important to stay close to the EU and that the deal with Japan largely replicated the deal the EU already had.

US presidential candidate Joe Biden said he would not allow peace in Northern Ireland to become a “victim of Brexit.” In the tweet sent on Sept. 16, Biden also said that there would be no future trade deal between the United States and the United Kingdom if border controls were returned.

Without any progress in trade talks, the UK government revealed how it would handle the “reasonable worst case scenario” in which the queues of 7,000 trucks could clog the roads around the Port of Dover and the Channel Tunnel from 1 January. .

To avoid this, the government said it would introduce a new permit system for trucks entering Kent. This would be to prevent trucks without proper documentation from traveling to the county and attempting to transport goods to the EU.

With less than 100 days to go before the new relationship began, Johnson said “it was all there” and that it was the responsibility of the EU to cross the line.

The EU said that while agreement had been reached in several technical areas, such as aviation security, there were still some important differences to overcome.

If a trade agreement is not reached, contingency measures could be introduced in areas such as drug safety. This would be to try to cushion some of the worst shocks that could start on January 1.