"Happy Brexit Day!" Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson may have boasted, like his successor Rishi Sunak, of the opportunities offered by Brexit, but it was in the gloom that Tuesday marked the third anniversary of the historic break with the European Union. .
In the midst of a social crisis, the United Kingdom has little reason to rejoice and the International Monetary Fund drove the point home on Tuesday. According to its latest forecast, the country will be the only major economy to suffer a recession this year, with its economy shrinking by 0.6%. Even Russia at war and under sanctions is expected to grow.
For months, the UK has struggled with double-digit inflation and social unrest. On Wednesday, strikes unprecedented for 10 years are expected, in education and transport in particular.
Three Prime Ministers succeeded each other last year, Northern Ireland is politically paralyzed as London tries to convince Brussels to reconsider the post-Brexit status of the province. Despite promises of border control and successive anti-immigration plans, illegal crossings of the Channel are constantly increasing.
Three years after the Big Ben gong which marked the divorce on January 31 at 11 p.m. local time, the Brexiters' promises of regained freedom seem a long way off, and the time is now for "Bregret" in public opinion.
According to an Ipsos poll published on Monday, 45% of Britons believe Brexit is going worse than expected - up from just 28% in June 2021. 9% believe the opposite.
Ousted from Downing Street last summer after an avalanche of scandals, Boris Johnson displayed the same ironclad optimism that helped him win the election at the end of 2019 and achieve Brexit after years of political psychodrama.
"Happy Brexit Day!" he tweeted with a video where he calls to "put aside all this negativity I hear about Brexit and remember the opportunities ahead".
But even on the side of the government, the enthusiasm remained more measured and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, yet a Brexiter from the start, contented himself with a press release to underline the "enormous progress made in exploiting the freedoms offered by the Brexit".
Quite technical, the Downing Street declaration underlines the "huge economic opportunity", with for example the creation of free ports, areas therefore benefiting from advantageous taxation, post-Brexit deregulation, which is long overdue.
January 31, 2020 marked the end of 47 years of the United Kingdom's membership of the European Union. Then began a nine-month period of transition with, in extremis, a free trade agreement brandished like a Christmas present by Boris Johnson to avoid a "no deal" synonymous with sudden rupture and economic chaos.
If the worst has been avoided, the head of diplomacy James Cleverly recognized it on Tuesday: the exit from the EU was "delicate".
Even though the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have considerably worsened the situation, the damage is there. According to the public budget forecasting body OBR, leaving the EU will reduce the size of the UK economy by around 4% in the long term.
The United Kingdom has distanced itself from its main economic partner, from where it imports a large part of the food it consumes. Labor shortages have been aggravated by the difficulty of bringing in European workers.
"No one (...) has been able for five years to give me any proof of the added value brought by Brexit", hammered the former European negotiator Michel Barnier on LBC radio. "There is no added value to Brexit", underlined the Frenchman, assuring that the door remained "open for new relations".
However, there is no question of going back, even for the Labor opposition, which is considerably ahead in the polls less than two years from the next legislative elections.
Anxious to shed his anti-Brexit past, Labor leader Keir Starmer says a return to the EU is not on his agenda as the issue has been settled, but wants to improve relations with Brussels.
01/31/2023 17:52:37 - London (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
