Returned to service for the occasion, the Big Ben bell rang in the damp cold, on December 31, at 11 p.m. (London), above the district of Westminster made deserted by the epidemic, to mark the final exit of the United Kingdom of the European Union (EU), after almost fifty years of common adventure. The capital celebrated the New Year with a ballet of illuminated drones above the Thames. From 10 Downing Street, Boris Johnson contented himself with a short video message, once again congratulating himself on getting a deal “Trade and cooperation” with Brussels on Christmas Eve.
“When the sun rises tomorrow, in 2021, (…) we will have the freedom to do things differently and if necessary, better than our friends in Europe ”, welcomed the British Prime Minister. He also insisted on this “Great moment” that the country lived, and promised “A United Kingdom that is global, open, generous, internationalist and pro-free trade”. At the brand new customs border with the EU, Friday 1er In the morning of January, the dreaded catastrophe did not take place either: the journalists sent to Calais and Dover noted a rare but fluid traffic.
Headliner of the Brexit campaign, in the 2016 referendum, Mr Johnson succeeded in bringing the divorce from the EU to an end. This separation, the Europeans saw it as a tear and for a long time believed that it would not take place, that economic interests and British pragmatism would prevail over a populist discourse wrongly accusing Brussels of being responsible for all the evils from the country. They were wrong. However, the ex-journalist, who made a name for himself by caricaturing their faults in the early 1990s, is not at the end of his sentences.
Non-event
First emergency: avoid completely losing control of the Covid-19 epidemic, while the SARS-CoV-2 virus variant (at least 50% more contagious) is spreading from the south of England to the entire territory of United Kingdom. The government wants to accelerate its vaccination campaign from January 4 (2 million injections per week), thanks to the green light given to the AstraZeneca / Oxford vaccine, much easier to deploy than the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine. He absolutely must achieve this to avoid tens of thousands of additional deaths, general and prolonged confinement of the country and an even more abysmal economic crisis.
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