Brexit: Four years after Brexit vote, UK leaves EU’s orbit

The UK has left the European Union’s single market and customs union as the Brexit saga enters a new chapter.

The United Kingdom has left the European Union’s economic and political orbit in an historic departure that has split Britons politically and marked the country’s greatest shift on the global stage in modern times.

As the clock struck 11pm in London on Thursday, December 31, the UK exited the bloc’s single market and customs union as the Brexit transition period came to an end.

Supporters claim the move will set the UK free to pursue new opportunities as an independent global power.

But critics argue it reverses decades of integration with its closest neighbour and threatens to break up the UK, harm the country’s economy and diminish its international standing.

“This is an amazing moment for this country,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in his New Year’s Eve message. “We have our freedom in our hands and it is up to us to make the most of it.”

The relationship between London and Brussels will now be reset under the terms of their recently inked Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

Thursday’s momentous shift came more than four years after a slim majority of Britons voted in favour of quitting the EU in a June 2016 referendum.

That vote unleashed a political crisis in the UK that effectively ended the political careers of Johnson’s two predecessors, Theresa May and David Cameron, polarised the nation, saw a rise in xenophobia and soured its relations with the bloc, its largest trading partner.

The relationship between London and Brussels will now be reset under the terms of their recently inked Trade and Cooperation Agreement.

In essence, it is a narrow free trade pact surrounded with other agreements on a range of issues including energy, transport and police and security cooperation.

The agreement was finally brokered a week ago, following months of fractious negotiations in the so-called transition period, which began after the UK’s formal departure from the EU in January.

The deal averts the prospect of a chaotic divorce and ensures goods can continue to travel between the UK and the EU without tariffs or quotas from the beginning of 2021, smoothing trade worth hundreds of billions of pounds – and euros – a year.

But London’s departure from Brussels’ orbit will nevertheless bring about a raft of new rules and red tape for businesses.

How Britons and Europeans live, work and travel between the country and the continent will also change, with new visa regulations taking effect.