It has finally happened – more than three-and-a-half years after voters backed Brexit in the 2016 EU referendum, the UK has officially left the European Union.
At 11pm GMT, the UK’s 47-year-long membership to the EU came to an end.
In an address to the nation on Friday night to mark the moment, Boris Johnson – who was a key figure in the Vote Leave campaign – said the UK’s exit from the EU was “not an end but a beginning”.
Despite “all its strengths” and admirable qualities, “the EU has evolved over 50 years in a direction that no longer suits this country”, the prime minister said.
“This is the dawn of a new era in which we no longer accept that your life chances – your family’s life chances – should depend on which part of the country you grow up in,” Johnson added.
Brexiteers gathered in a Union Jack-lined Parliament Square for a party led by Nigel Farage to celebrate the UK leaving the EU.
Revellers – who chanted “bye bye EU” and sang Rule Britannia – were addressed by a number of Brexit Party figures, including former MEP Ann Widdecombe, chairman Richard Tice and Farage himself.
With Big Ben undergoing repairs and unable to ring to mark Brexit, revellers brought their own ‘Little Ben’ – a modified Victorian cart featuring a small church bell.
A ‘celebratory reception’ was also held at Number 10 – where a light show projected onto the building counted down to 11pm – for senior ministers, officials, and supporters of the Leave campaign.
According to the BBC, Johnson’s guests were served English sparkling wine, beef and Yorkshire pudding canapés, fillet of lamb on toast and Shropshire blue cheese.
But not everyone was celebrating the UK’s departure. Hundreds of pro-EU campaigners gathered at the Angel of Peace Statue in Hove. Carrying EU flags, demonstrators lit candles and sang Ode to Joy, the European anthem.
In Scotland – where 62 per cent of voters backed Remain – rallies and candlelit vigils took place across the country, while government buildings St Andrew’s House and Victoria Quay were lit up in the colours of the EU flag.
While Jan. 31 will go down in the history books as the moment Brexit officially happened, very little will change in the day-to-day lives of people in Britain in 2020.
This is because the UK has now entered the ‘transition period’, which is set to last until Dec. 31.
During this 11-month period – which has been designed to allow the UK and EU to negotiate what their future relationship will look like – the UK will remain in the European single market and customs union.
Meanwhile, EU laws will also still apply until the end of the transition and freedom of movement will continue. The UK will still be bound by the continent’s sweeping free trade deal with Canada on goods and services, known as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, or CETA.
However, UK leaders will be able to start negotiating free trade deals with other countries. Britain will also no longer have seats in the European Parliament, Commission or Council.
Canada in preliminary talks
Canada and the EU have completed what has been billed as informal preliminary talks about rolling over elements of CETA into a bilateral deal, but no date for formal negotiations has been set.
“Any future trade agreement between Canada and the U.K. would be influenced by the U.K.-EU trade relationship, as well as any unilateral U.K. approaches,” said Ryan Nearing, a spokesman for Canada’s International Trade Minister Mary Ng.
The British High Commissioner to Canada, Susan le Jeune d’Allegeershecque, said her country is now free to negotiate with whatever country it chooses, but formal talks with Canada aren’t ready to start just yet.
“I think very much depends on how fast we can move ahead with the discussions with the EU, about our future relationship with the EU because. That’s obviously a crucial element in whatever we work out with Canada,” she said
“I wouldn’t want to put a date on it.”
On Friday night, the British flag was removed from its pole outside the European parliament in Brussels and replaced with an EU flag.
In a tweet, former PM Theresa May – whose own Brexit deal was rejected three times by parliament – said: “After more than three years, we can finally say we have delivered on the result of the 2016 referendum and have kept faith with the British people.”
French president Emmanuel Macron said Brexit was an “alarm signal” which should be heard across the EU.
“At midnight, for the first time in 70 years, a country will leave the European Union,” he said. “It is a historic alarm signal that must be heard in each of our countries.”
Meanwhile, former European Council president Donald Tusk tweeted: “My dear British friends. We were, we are, and we will always be a community. And no Brexit will ever change that.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday he was confident that Britain’s departure from the EU would be marked by “an orderly transition” with minimal disruption to Canadian trade and investment.
“The greatest threat was on a so-called no-deal Brexit. They’ve avoided that,” Trudeau told reporters Friday in Montreal.
“We are very confident that we will minimize any disruptions to investment, to trade, to people-to-people ties with the United Kingdom.”
With a file from the Canadian Press