Goodbye to grimness... freedom is in our hands
BORIS JOHNSON hailed an ‘amazing moment’ for Britain last night as the nation finally left the European Union.
In a New Year’s address, the Prime Minister said ‘goodbye to the grimness of 2020’ and welcomed the new ‘freedom in our hands’.
The chimes of Big Ben rang out at 11pm – midnight on the Continent – marking the UK’s departure from the EU’s single market and customs union.
Some 1,652 days after 17.4million people voted to Leave in the 2016 Brexit referendum, the UK is from today no longer subject to EU laws and the free movement of people has ended.
The country formally ended its 47 years of EU membership on January 31 last year, but the transition period meant that it remained tied to Brussels until last night.
In his televised new year message, Mr Johnson declared: ‘This is an amazing moment for this country. We have our freedom in our hands and it is up to us to make the most of it.’
The Prime Minister conceded the UK faces a ‘ hard struggle’ in the coming months because of the pandemic, but insisted the country will bounce back from coronavirus in 2021.
He reflected on the past 12 months, when the Government was ‘forced to tell people how to live their lives’ and ‘we lost too many loved ones before their time’. ‘I can
‘Free to do things better than the EU’
imagine that there will be plenty of people who will be only too happy to say goodbye to the grimness of 2020,’ he admitted.
But he heralded the ‘spirit of togetherness’ that was rediscovered as people ‘pulled the stops out to keep the country moving in the biggest crisis we have faced for generations’.
Mr Johnson praised the scientists who produced the world’s first effective treatment for coronavirus, as well as those who worked on the Oxford vaccine approved for use this week.
He said: ‘With every jab that goes into the arm of every elderly or vulnerable person, we are changing the odds, in favour of humanity and against Covid.
‘We know that we have a hard struggle still ahead of us for weeks and months, because we face a new variant of the disease that requires a new vigilance.
‘But as the sun rises tomorrow on 2021 we have the certainty of those vaccines.’
Referencing the end of the Brexit transition period, the Prime Minister said the UK would be ‘free to do things differently, and if necessary better, than our friends in the EU’ in 2021.
He said Britain will ‘work with partners around the world, not just to tackle climate change but to create the millions of high-skilled jobs this country will need not just this year – 2021 – as we bounce back from Covid, but in the years to come’.
The PM added: ‘I think it will be the overwhelming instinct of the people of this country to come together as one United Kingdom – England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland working together to express our values around the world.’
He concluded: ‘I believe 2021 is above all the year when we will eventually do those everyday things that now seem lost in the past. Bathed in a rosy glow of nostalgia, going to the pub, concerts, theatres, restaurants, or simply holding hands with our loved ones in the normal way.
‘We are still a way off from that – there are tough weeks and months ahead. But we can see that illuminated sign that marks the end of the journey, and even more important, we can see with growing clarity how we are going to get there. And that is what gives me such confidence about 2021.’
Eurosceptic MPs l ast night expressed their delight that the country was finally loosening its ties with the EU.
Veteran Tory Sir Bill Cash said it was a ‘victory for democracy and sovereignty’ that can only be compared in peacetime with the evolution of modern democracy after the end of the Stuart dynasty in
the late 1680s and ’90s. Fellow Eurosceptic Sir John Redwood, a Conservative MP for more than 30 years, said he felt ‘much relief ’ that the UK has stated its wish to be ‘self-governing’.
He said: ‘I never doubted we would win the referendum. I argued that we were being good Europeans by stepping aside from their mighty task to create a United States of Europe.
‘We should wish them well and be friends with them, but the fact that the UK had refused to join the euro showed where our hearts resided – with the wider world a nd wi t h nati o nal democracy.
‘I look forward to 2021 as a year of strong economic recovery, where we can start to use new freedoms and opportunities.’