With the United Kingdom finally leaving the European Union after almost half a century of membership on Friday, stage has been set for 11 months of potentially fraught talks that will determine whether the two sides can avert a chaotic divorce.
At the EU headquarters in Brussels, the British flag was lowered. Little will change immediately, however, as a transition period keeps the United Kingdom as a member in all but name until end-2020.
While it marks a new era for the UK, it has cast off from the EU obviously for an uncertain future.
After 1,317 days of unprecedented political turmoil triggered by the Brexit referendum, the UK is now legally out.
During the transition phase that lasts until the year-end, Britain will be able to trade freely with the EU and will be subject to its laws, even though has no say in making them, according to Bloomberg. Britons will still use the same lines at the airport, be able to take their pets with them on holiday freely, and will still enjoy free data-roaming on their mobile phones.
All that will change on December 31, if the UK and Europe fail to agree on their future relationship. If they can’t, they will default to conducting business on World Trade Organisation terms - meaning import and export tariffs and border checks will be imposed where now there are none.
When the exit day finally came, after 3-1/2 years of wrangling since the 2016 referendum, it was an anticlimax of sorts: while Brexiteers waving flags toasted freedom in the rain, many Britons showed indifference or relief, a Reuters dispatch said.
Leaving was once a far-fetched idea: the UK 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 miscalculations by former Prime Minister David Cameron led to the 52% to 48% vote to leave in 2016.
The EU’s most powerful leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron, cast Brexit as a sad moment that was a turning point for Europe. The EU warned that leaving would be worse than staying.
Cast either as an epic opportunity or a grave mistake, Brexit has turned long-held views of Britain upside down just as the world grapples with the rise of China and the West’s deepest divisions since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, whose liberated satellite states later joined the EU.
It also diminishes the EU, Reuters says. At the stroke of midnight in Brussels, the bloc lost 15% of its economy, its biggest military spender and the world’s international financial capital, London.
Some analysts believe an uncertain future now stares at the post-Brexit UK. One analyst said the UK, which was once part of the world’s most powerful economic bloc, may be getting smaller as an inward-looking island.
That said, the fact remains Brexit provides the UK a real opportunity yet again to make its own decisions and rules as a sovereign nation.
