LONDON (AP) – A steady stream of trucks has launched ferries and trains on both sides of the English Channel on Friday, a quiet New Year’s Day, following an overnight seismic shift in EU-UK relations.
The congested freight route between the south-east of England and the north-west of France is on the front line of change now that Britain has fully abandoned the economic embrace of the 27-nation bloc, the final stage of Brexit.
“For most trucks, they won’t even notice the difference,” said John Keefe, a spokesman for Eurotunnel, which transports vehicles under the Canal. “There has always been a risk that if this happens at a busy time, then we may face some difficulties, but it happens overnight on a public holiday and on a long weekend.”
Britain left the European bloc’s large single market for people, goods and services at 11pm London time at midnight in Brussels on Thursday in the country’s biggest economic change since World War II. A new UK-EU trade deal will bring new restrictions and bureaucracy, but for British Brexit supporters it means claiming national independence from the EU and its network of rules.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, whose support for Brexit helped push the country out of the EU, called it “an amazing time for this country.”
“We have the freedom in our hands and it is up to us to make the most of it,” he said in a New Year’s video message.
The historic moment has passed quietly, with UK blockade measures against coronavirus limiting mass gatherings to celebrate or mourn. Brexit, which had dominated public debate in Britain for years, was even pushed from some newspaper pages by the news of the huge vaccination effort against COVID-19.
There has been little enthusiasm for Brexit on the subdued streets of London – which voted strongly to stay in the EU in the 2016 UK accession referendum.
“I think it’s a disaster, among many disasters this year,” said Matt Steel, a doctor. “It’s a miserable business. Honestly, I don’t see any positive aspects in this. “
The break comes 11 months after a political Brexit that left both sides in the language of a “transitional period” in which EU rights and rules continued to apply to Britain.
The trade agreement concluded on Christmas Eve after months of tense negotiations ensures that the two sides can continue to buy and sell goods without tariffs or quotas. But companies face new costs and documents, including customs declarations and border controls.
The Dover Port of the English Channel and the Eurotunnel have prepared for delays with the introduction of the new measures.
The vital supply route was growled a few days after France closed its border for trucks in the UK for 48 hours last week in response to a rapidly spreading variant of the virus identified in England.
The pandemic and a holiday weekend meant that cross-channel traffic was light on Friday. The UK has also been slow to impose full customs controls for several months so companies can adjust.
The British government insisted that “the border systems and infrastructure we need are in place and we are ready for the new beginning of the United Kingdom.”
New controls have also been put in place over the Irish Sea. A dozen trucks disembarked from the first ferry that arrived in Dublin’s Port of Wales before dawn, eliminating the new customs inspections without delay.
“We have avoided the kind of dramatic disruption of a Brexit without a trade agreement, but that does not mean that things are not changing very fundamentally, because they are,” said Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney.
“We will now see trade of 80 billion euros ($ 97 billion) in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland, interrupted by many more checks and declarations, as well as bureaucracy and documents, as well as cost and delay. “
Hundreds of millions of people in the UK and across the block are also facing changes in their daily lives, with new rules for work visas, travel insurance and pet documents.
And months and years of discussions and arguments are expected, above all, from fair competition to fish quotas, as the UK and the EU settle into their new relationship of friends, neighbors and rivals.
Brexit could also have major constitutional repercussions for the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland, which borders Ireland as a member of the EU, remains more closely linked to the bloc’s economy in the wake of the divorce. So, as goods continue to flow freely across the Irish land border, there will be new procedures for trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK In the long run that could take Northern Ireland away from the rest of the UK and its neighboring south.
In Scotland, which voted strongly in 2016 to stay, Brexit backed support for secession from Britain. The country’s pro-independence prime minister, Nicola Sturgeon, wrote on Twitter: “Scotland will be back soon, Europe. Keep the light on. ”
European leaders, whose patience with Britain has run out in the years of the Brexit melodrama, have expressed regret over Britain’s departure and anger at the forces that led it.
“The United Kingdom remains our neighbor, but also our friend and ally,” said French President Emmanuel Macron in his New Year’s speech to the nation. “This choice to leave Europe, this Brexit, has been the child of European malaise and many false lies and promises.”
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Jo Kearney of Folkestone, England, contributed to this story.
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