BREXIT CUSTOMS CHECKS MAKE QUIET DEBUT

At the ports and terminals on Britain’s southeastern coast, a new era began Friday morning without much fuss. Ferries and trains that carry goods to France from Dover and Folkestone were running on time, and drivers snaked their trucks into the port unencumbered by congestion.

To all appearances, little may have changed Jan. 1, the country’s first day outside the European Union’s single market and customs union. It was, after all, a public holiday, and not much business was taking place.

But for the first time in more than 25 years, goods traveling between Britain and the European Union will no longer move freely, and customs checks will be enforced for goods entering the bloc.

A trade deal, signed into law in Britain in the early hours of Thursday, less than 24 hours before it took effect, means the country and the European Union will trade goods without tariffs. Businesses, however, will still face significant changes that they had been urged to prepare for even during the lockdowns, closures and other social restrictions that the government has introduced to contain a surging coronavirus pandemic.

The changes are bound to bring “bumpy moments,” a top Cabinet minister predicted this week. The government expects new customs paperwork alone to cost British businesses 7 billion British pounds (about $9.6 billion) a year. The European Union is Britain’s largest trading partner, with 670 billion British pounds of imports and exports, and Britain imports far more goods from the bloc than it exports. (It has a trade surplus in services, which are not covered by the trade deal.)

Britain has at least 150,000 exporters who have never sent their goods beyond the bloc, according to data from the country’s tax agency, and will therefore need to make customs declarations for the first time. Border checks within the European Union were scrapped in 1993.

This is a change that will be immediately felt at Britain’s ports, especially the busy Port of Dover and the Eurotunnel terminus at Folkestone, which connect the country to France. But Friday, with most business halted for New Year’s Day, trains and ferries were reported to be running smoothly. Eurotunnel reported that 200 trucks had used its shuttle train by 8 a.m., with all the correct documents.

PETER MORRISON AP Heavy-goods vehicles arrive from Scotland at the P&O ferry terminal in the port at Larne, on the north coast of Northern Ireland, on Friday, the first day after the United Kingdom's split with the European bloc's vast single market for people, goods and services.