Quiet New Year’s Day gives breathing room after U.K.-EU split

LONDON — A steady trickle of trucks rolled off ferries and trains on both sides of the English Channel on Friday, a quiet New Year’s Day after a seismic overnight shift in relations between the European Union and Britain.

The busy goods route between southeast England and northwest France is on the front line of changes now that the U.K. has fully left the economic embrace of the 27-nation bloc, the final stage of Brexit.

“For the majority of trucks, they won’t even notice the difference,” said John Keefe, spokesman for Eurotunnel, which carries vehicles under the Channel. “There was always the risk that if this happened at a busy time then we could run into some difficulties, but it’s happening overnight on a bank holiday and a long weekend.”

Britain left the European bloc’s vast single market for people, goods and services at 11 p.m. London time on New Year’s Eve, in the biggest single economic change the country has experienced since World War II. A new U.K.-EU trade deal will bring restrictions and red tape, but for British Brexit supporters, it means reclaiming national independence from the EU and its web of rules.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called it “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,” he said in a New Year’s video message.

The historic moment passed quietly, with U.K. lockdown measures against the coronavirus curtailing mass gatherings to celebrate or mourn.

Brexit, which had dominated public debate in Britain for years, was even pushed off some newspaper front pages by news of the huge vaccination effort against COVID-19, which is surging across the country.

In the subdued streets of London — which voted strongly to remain in the EU in Britain’s 2016 referendum — there was little enthusiasm for Brexit.

“I think it is a disaster, among many disasters this year,” said Matt Steel, a doctor. “It is a crappy deal. I don’t really see any positives in it, to be honest.”

But in seaside Folkestone, at the English end of the Channel Tunnel, retired bank manager David Binks said he was relieved that the tortuous Brexit saga was — just possibly — over.

“It’s been going on for so long now that the time is now, I think, that we move on and go from there,” he said.