Features

Looking to consolidate Brexit under a PM on the ropes

The UK is struggling to find its feet after leaving the European Union, while Boris Johnson’s position is increasingly weak

The first year of Brexit has hardly been a vic­tory lap. The United King­dom for­mally left the Eu­ro­pean Union on Jan­u­ary 31, 2021, in the midst of a wave of coro­n­avirus in­fec­tions. The biggest pes­simist could never have fore­seen what the UK is now fac­ing, but the fact that prod­ucts such as petrol have be­come scarce has wor­ried even the staunchest sup­port­ers of Brexit.

Dis­en­gag­ing from Brus­sels has brought in new cus­toms pro­to­cols that have led to thou­sands of prod­ucts pil­ing up in British ports. The new rules have also made it harder for peo­ple with­out a British pass­port to enter the coun­try, which is why many com­pa­nies have staff short­ages. The lat­est fig­ures from the Na­tional Sta­tis­tics In­sti­tute show that a mil­lion peo­ple have left the UK in re­cent months due to re­stricted liv­ing and work­ing con­di­tions in the coun­try, while the pan­demic has forced oth­ers to leave.

The eco­nomic and lo­gis­ti­cal cri­sis – which the British gov­ern­ment is con­fi­dent will ease in the com­ing months – is com­pounded by a so­cial cri­sis. Most Brexit sup­port­ers live in cities of fewer than 100,000 in­hab­i­tants, where ties with Brus­sels were gen­er­ally viewed neg­a­tively. The ar­gu­ment of Brex­iters call­ing for the UK to re­gain sov­er­eignty and end de­pen­dence on the EU found favour in rural areas es­pe­cially. In Lon­don and other big cities, the sit­u­a­tion was very dif­fer­ent, caus­ing deep splits in British so­ci­ety.

With Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son in­creas­ingly weak­ened, the coun­try is fac­ing the sec­ond year of its solo ad­ven­ture with mis­giv­ings about the de­par­ture emerg­ing in the coun­try’s dif­fer­ent na­tions: Scot­land is propos­ing a new in­de­pen­dence ref­er­en­dum for 2023 after most peo­ple there voted to re­main. Para­dox­i­cally, in­de­pen­dence could be a way back into the EU for the Scots.

The other focus of ten­sion is North­ern Ire­land. The re­turn of bor­ders on the is­land has re­vived old con­flicts and led to vi­o­lence. Talk about bor­ders has meant a re­turn to ear­lier times, with sup­port­ers of Ire­land’s re­uni­fi­ca­tion in con­flict with those who are pro-British and think the Brexit with­drawal agree­ment was too soft.

fea­ture eu­ro­pean union

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