Brexit becomes chronic one year after the break

One year after the departure of United Kingdom from European Union, the Brexit it resists going down in history. London is now reneging on parts of the agreement that took effect in January and disputes with its continental neighbors are becoming chronic, as trade slows and tension grows in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

The impact of the pandemic makes it impossible to calculate the immediate effect of Brexit on British GDP, but experts and institutions maintain their prospects for lower growth in the medium term and note that trade with the EU has not recovered at the same rate as trade with the rest of the world.

The exit from the EU bloc has also aggravated global supply problems affecting the United Kingdom, which has to deal with new customs barriers, and the lack of workers in some sectors, given that British companies can no longer use the EU market for fill low-skilled vacancies.

Added to the economic consequences is the deterioration in international relations. Prime Minister Boris Johnson is pressing his former partners to renegotiate the pact that took effect in January, a dispute that threatens to escalate into a trade war as diplomatic ties between London and Paris are at their lowest point.

Brexit materialized a year ago, but its shadow will not disappear from British politics in the near future, Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe think tank, told EFE.

“Even if Brexit had occurred in the best possible circumstances, with the most advantageous trade deal, we would still be obsessed with the European Union, because it is an economic giant on our side. We cannot escape that fact, no matter how hard we try ”, he says.

Heading into a trade crash

If London fulfills its threat to unilaterally annul aspects of the controversial Protocol for Northern Ireland, one of the key pieces of the agreement with Brussels, the EU partners will not hesitate to impose retaliation that, although at first they would try to be proportional to the non-compliance could lead to a spiral of measures and countermeasures from both sides of the English Channel.

“There is a possibility that a trade war will start if the European Union responds by imposing additional controls or tariffs on UK products,” Thomas Sampson, professor of economics at the London School of Economics (LSE), warned Efe.

In the worst-case scenario, the EU could go so far as to adopt the “extreme measure” of canceling the entire trade agreement reached last Christmas Eve, which would once again place the United Kingdom facing the abyss of a Brexit without agreement.

Regain lost sovereignty

Since the controversial Northern Irish protocol came into force on January 1, the British Government argued that it caused too much socio-economic friction, which is why it has postponed “sine die” many of the agreed merchandise controls and, ultimately, aspires to remove them.

At first, the problem seemed to be confined to increased bureaucracy and customs checks, but when the EU agreed to cut those barriers by 80%, London brought deeper disagreements to the table about how the protocol works.

Post-Brexit, Northern Ireland is integrated into the UK and EU markets at the same time. This unique status allows compliance with the 1998 peace accords, which require that there be no border between the two Ireland, but obliges the British region to comply with European laws and judicial decisions.

The Johnson Executive now repudiates that arrangement and wants to regain the sovereignty that the EU still maintains in Northern Ireland.

It calls for reducing the role of community institutions in the province, in particular arbitration by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and preventing Northern Irish companies from having to comply with community subsidy rules.

“I think the root of the problem is the protocol as a whole. The UK Government does not like Northern Ireland following European standards. He does not believe it is necessary, he wants to change it and will try to take advantage of any opportunity to do so, “David Henig, an analyst at the European Center for International Political Economy, told EFE.

The country’s Union, up for debate

In Northern Ireland, Brexit resurrected the specter of a border with the neighboring Republic of Ireland, which in turn renewed the force with which Republican parties advocate a referendum on reunification.

“We face the real possibility that Sinn Féin will become the biggest party in Northern Ireland and also in the south. This certainly changes the nature of the political debate there, ”Menon argues.

In Scotland, where 55% of voters opposed independence in 2014, Brexit has relaunched the nationalists’ campaign to repeat the plebiscite, considering that the break with the EU changes the conditions in which the Scots decided to remain in the United Kingdom.

With the next general elections scheduled for 2024, the consequences of Brexit will foreseeably continue to mark the country’s agenda for a long time.