U.K. leaves the European Union
U.K. ENTERS THE UNKNOWN AS IT BIDS FAREWELL TO 47 YEARS WITH EUROPEAN UNION
The United Kingdom left the European Union on Friday with a mixture of joy, anger and indifference, casting off into the unknown after nearly five decades and dealing a blow to Europe’s drive to forge unity from the ruins of the Second World War.
The EU’S most powerful leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, saw Brexit as a sad moment that was a turning point for Europe. The EU warned that leaving would be worse than staying.
In the U.K.’S biggest geopolitical upheaval since its postwar loss of empire, it turns its back on 47 years of membership and must begin charting its own course for generations to come.
At the stroke of midnight in Brussels, the EU lost 15 per cent of its economy, its biggest military spender and the world’s international financial capital — London.
A clock projected onto a British-flag-themed Downing Street — Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s residence — counted down the minutes Friday night.
Several thousand Brexit supporters gathered outside the British Parliament, many waving British and English flags as they sang Elgar’s Land of Hope and Glory.
“For many people, this is an astonishing moment of hope, a moment they thought would never come,” said Johnson, one of the leaders of the “Leave” campaign in the 2016 referendum on EU membership. “This is the dawn of a new era.”
Johnson celebrated with English sparkling wine and a distinctly British array of canapés including Shropshire blue cheese and Yorkshire puddings with beef and horseradish.
“For all its strengths and admirable qualities the EU has evolved over 50 years in a direction that no longer suits this country,” Johnson said in a speech.
“We want this to be the beginning of a new era of friendly co-operation between the EU and an energetic Britain, a Britain that is simultaneously a great European power and truly global in our range and ambitions.”
In Brussels, the British flag was lowered at the EU council building and the bloc’s flag, a circle of 12 stars on a blue background, was removed from outside the British embassy.
Leaving the EU was once farfetched: the U.K. joined in 1973 as “the sick man of Europe” and less than two decades ago British leaders were arguing about whether to join the euro.
But the turmoil of the eurozone crisis, fears about mass immigration and a series of miscalculations by former prime minister David Cameron prompted the 52 per cent to 48 per cent vote to leave in June 2016.
The final parting of the EU’S most recalcitrant member is an anticlimax of sorts. Beyond the symbolism, little will change until the end of 2020.
By then, Johnson has promised to strike a broad free trade agreement with the EU, the world’s biggest trading bloc.
“These negotiations certainly won’t be easy,” Merkel said, cautioning London that if it deviated from the EU’S rules then its access to the bloc’s vast single market would be limited.
Macron said Britain could not expect to be treated the same way as when it was part of the club.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the U.K. will be like all non-eu countries and can’t expect any special treatment.
“Only those who recognize the rules of the internal market can fully benefit from the common market,” she said. “Our experience has taught us that strength does not lie in splendid isolation but in our unique union.”
Macron agreed that the U.K.’S relationship with the EU will change.
“You can’t be in and out,” Macron told the French in a televised address. “The British people chose to leave the European Union. It won’t have the same obligations, so it will no longer have the same rights.”
U.S. President Donald Trump has long supported Brexit. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Britons wanted to escape the “tyranny of Brussels.”
Some Britons will celebrate and others will weep — but many will do neither.
For proponents, Brexit is “independence day” — an escape from what they cast as a doomed German-dominated project with a doomed single currency that is failing its 500 million people.
They hope departure will herald reforms to reshape Britain and propel it ahead of its European rivals.
“We are getting our independence back,” Mark Leeds, a 39-yearold butcher, told Reuters beside parliament.
Opponents say Brexit is a folly that will weaken the West, torpedo what is left of Britain’s global clout, undermine its economy and ultimately leave the U.K. a less cosmopolitan set of islands in the northern Atlantic.
David Tucker, a pro-european of 75, said he came to London from Wales to march in the hope that Britain would one day rejoin the EU.
“It is a tragedy,” he said. “We were once part of the world’s most powerful economic bloc. Now we are just an inward-looking island that is going to get smaller.”
The referendum exposed deep divisions and triggered soul-searching about everything from secession and immigration to empire and modern Britishness.
The transition phase of Brexit will run until the end of the year. And if the U.K. and the EU haven’t agreed on their future relationship at that point they’ll conduct business on World Trade Organization terms.