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The UK has started a new relationship with the European Union with the end of the Brexit transition period.
Despite leaving the EU on January 31 last year, the UK has remained bound by the bloc’s rules as a member of the single market and the customs union.
However, this ended at 11pm and the UK and the EU will now do business under the terms of a free trade agreement signed a week ago.
Trucks board last DFDS ferry from Dover port
The end of the transition period also means sweeping changes for the British in immigration, European travel and more.
Earlier, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the beginning of the UK’s new relationship with the EU marked a “new beginning in the history of our country.”
Eurosceptic MPs were delighted, and veteran conservative Sir Bill Cash called it a “victory for democracy and sovereignty” that could only be compared in peacetime with the evolution of modern democracy after the end of the Stuart dynasty.
His fellow Eurosceptic Sir John Redwood, who was among John Major’s cabinet members in the 1990s who criticized closer European integration, said he was “very relieved.”
He said: “I never doubted that we would win the referendum. I argued that we were being good Europeans by turning away from their powerful task of creating the United States of Europe.”
A truck in Calais, northern France, on the day the Brexit transition period ends
“We should wish them well and be friends with them, but the fact that the UK has refused to join the euro shows where our hearts lie: with the rest of the world and with national democracy.”
Johnson, in a statement mainly reflected in the coronavirus crisis, said the UK would be “free to do things differently, and if necessary better, than our friends in the EU” in 2021.
He said: “This is an incredible time for this country. We have our freedom in our hands and it is up to us to make the most of it.
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The rules change as the Brexit transition ends.
“And I think it will be the overwhelming instinct of the people of this country to come together as one UK: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland working together to express our values around the world.”
Johnson wasn’t the only one to refer to Brexit in his New Year’s speech, with French President Emmanuel Macron strengthening alliances between the UK and one of its closest neighbors.
He said: “The UK is still our neighbor, and also our friend and ally.”
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Companies prepared for Brexit changes
A free trade deal agreed on Christmas Eve after months of negotiations means Britain and the 27-nation EU can continue to trade goods without tariffs or quotas.
But the deal has been criticized for leaving companies with new paperwork and expenses. It has left some merchants struggling to figure out how the new rules contained in the 1,200-page document apply to them, as the new relationship takes effect.
There was anxiety about the impact on the logistics industry.
While UK ports, including Dover and the Eurotunnel, were bracing for delays, it is believed truck drivers can expect a “relaxed” approach from HMRC at first.
There were fears of disruptions, but nightmare visions of long truck lines may not come true as companies seek to avoid crossing the Canal entirely and customs officials take a “flexible” approach.
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Ed Conway analyzes the economic impact of Brexit
But carriers in Northern Ireland were said to be approaching the end of the Brexit transition with “uneasiness”, with many saying they will keep volumes low for the first few days of 2021 while they wait to see what the impact will be.
Northern Ireland’s protocol agreement with the EU will keep the land border with the Republic flowing freely, after the EU and UK agreed to move new regulatory and customs processes to the Irish Sea, but that means controls are focused in trade between Great Britain and the United Kingdom. North Ireland.
And the president of the Irish Road Transport Association (IRHA) said there would be “trouble and chaos” in the coming weeks as the systems had not been tested.
The last DFDS ferry (center) leaves Dover before the end of the Brexit transition period
Eugene Drennan said carriers were preparing for significant delays.
There was relief in other sectors after at least two more deals were closed with just hours before the new deals went into effect.
Spain and the UK reached a preliminary agreement to keep Gibraltar’s land border open, and Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said an agreement had been made to ensure UK drivers would not need to carry an international driving license. if they wanted to use a vehicle on the mainland. .
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Boris Johnson signs the trade agreement
He tweeted: “We have now reached an agreement with all 27 EU member states to recognize UK licenses WITHOUT the need for an international driving permit. Starting tomorrow UK drivers can continue to drive in the EU. without an IDP (once Covid restrictions are lifted). “
The end of the Brexit transition period will end four years of bitter oars, after 17.4 million voters, or 52%, backed Brexit while 16.1 million, or 48%, voted in favor. to stay on the block.
Johnson had been among the proponents of the phrase “take back control”, but in his television address Thursday he said there would be no bonfire of regulations to build a “bargaining basement in Dickensian Britain” and that the country would remain the “European par excellence”. civilization”.
