Understanding The Impact Of Brexit

How Has Brexit Impacted The UK?

?Abstract

???????The infamous Brexit left the EU in shock by weakening its economy. More importantly, though it may seem that the economy of the UK has not been affected badly yet, the current events namely supply chain disruptions and shortage of labor in various business industries in the country as we speak, clearly indicate otherwise. In other words, things for the UK will gradually get worse in years to come. When it is sized up thoroughly, once the EU’s second-biggest economy and major net budget contributor thus a key military force, Britain is facing more challenges than envisaged after ending its relationship with the EU. In this essay, I investigated the impacts of Brexit on the UK economically and socially, and as well as environmentally. Based on my investigation, the impacts on economy-wise have so far been more disastrous than the other aspects, also most Britons had forgotten that Brexit distracted the attention from urgent issues, namely the climate crisis. The above-mentioned impacts are what I seek in what follows.

Accession of Britain to EU

????????????After World War II, major western European countries decided to pool their natural resources with the aim of ending bloody wars among them. At that time, the UK was having struggles mostly due to the world war and applied for EU membership in 1961. Key economies of the European continent such as Germany and France seemed to have been benefiting vastly due to their membership. Thus, the UK succumbed to the temptation as well and decided to apply to join the EU in 1961, only to find France to veto the applications in 1963. What a bummer! It did not deter the UK from applying again, alas; the stubborn French government vetoed the second application. Why on Earth the French government resisted the joining of the UK, you may think to yourself. Here is why. France distrusted the British obviously due to the historical tensions between them; France posited that the British would always be in favor of the US. Last, not least, the French farming industry was at the stake. Finally, in 1969 the green light was given to negotiations for British membership, with talks starting in 1970. Alongside Denmark and Ireland, the UK became a member of the European Economic Community in 1973. Up until the day of Brexit, over the course of the past 47 years, the British government rooted for the single market policy of the EU, also pushed for EU enlargement, mostly because it benefited the UK. It goes without saying that the very government of the UK was behind all the invention of regional subsidies for poorer regions. On top of that, the UK embraced a massive number of immigrants from less-developed EU member countries, especially from Romania based on Professor Sookkyong Kim’s lectures. At the same time, the British government watered down some of the important protection laws concerning the environment, and always resisted the euro and the Schengen passport-free zone.

Here comes Brexit

?????Based on the complex history of how the UK joined the EEC, which is now known as the EU, the UK’s breakup with the EU may come as a surprise to many. Hold that thought. John Henley the Guardian reporter wrote that Britain is an island and it has been separated from the continent for the past 8000 years. Also based on its history, the UK is global and imperial. On top of that, Second World War heroics made most Britons feel exceptionally different (superior), due to relative economic success and Eurosceptic press that always badmouths Brussels. The above-mentioned reasons blended to shape the idea that the whole existence of the EU was the anti-British plot. Thus the very idea of BREXIT was born. The call for Britain's exit intensified amid the financial crisis. In addition to that, public concern over the EU’s immigration policy handling harnessed the hatred towards the EU. As a consequence, more and more voters began to clamor for Brexit under the campaign slogan “Take Back Control”. Moreover, it happened. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Irish premier Varadkar settled the agreement to shift the border checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. After this deal was approved by MPs, it was also ratified in the EU parliament, thus Westminster brought the final curtain down on the 47 years of EU membership on 31 January in 2020. This is how the UK ceased to be a member of the EU, and it can join back up with another application.

??????Much to the public's surprise, the final curtain-down did not automatically mean that the UK citizens could no longer live or study and work in the EU. Then what was the point of the BREXIT in the first place, since there was no significant change even after the long-waited Brexit. Do not leap to any conclusions yet. The reason why the Britons could continue their lives as if nothing big had happened was due to the transition period that allowed time to negotiate a new relationship while remaining in the EU single market; this meant that the EU citizens in the UK did not have to budge a bit. This came to its end after Boris Johnson had ruled out any extension of the transition period, thus making it impossible to extend the Brexit withdrawal agreement. As of January 1st, 2021, the UK no longer had to comply with the EU rules, meaning that the UK citizens were no longer EU citizens. More importantly, this determined that the freedom of movement of goods, people, and capital and services came to a stop.

What legal and institutional impacts did Brexit bring about, in the UK?

??????Jennifer Rankin, in her article, wrote that the major changes as a result of Brexit mainly regarded legal and institutional aspects of the UK. For example, EU regulations no longer apply to the UK except to the extent unilaterally adopted by the UK, or otherwise agreed between the UK and the EU(Nexis, 2021). In addition, the UK may follow some of the EU rules, but will not have a say in devising them. That means that ministers from the UK will no longer take part in the EU law-making process. Most importantly, the prime minister will not be invited to EU summits where the priorities of the EU are set. Since the day, Brexit came into effect Britain moved on without the EU. Now that Britain is on its own, the government passed new legislation in four major areas to put the vision of Brexit into effect. Of those, new immigration laws that terminated that freedom of movement of the EU, also laws concerning agriculture, environment, and trade followed suit.

What are some issues at stake here?

???????????There is a big list that contains the issues at stake; of those, a trade deal tops that list. The deal is supposed to ensure the tariff and quota-free flow of goods between the EU member states and the UK. The former Prime Minister Theresa May saw this coming and strived to bring about frictionless trade as possible with the EU keeping in mind that the EU is the biggest market for the UK. She hoped that even if the UK left the EU customs union and the single market, she would agree to have some revised customs arrangements with the EU. She did that because she thought this approach would help to avoid the border checks, and the UK would be allowed to stay in some of the vital EU agencies. Reversing it, Borris Johnson went on abandoning May’s aspiration; he instead sought to negotiate tariff-and quota-free trade with the EU, which the EU finds unacceptable. Because, since the UK is no longer in the EU’s customs union, customs checks at the border to examine whether the goods satisfy the rules of origin requirements in order to qualify for tariff-free entry are evitable. Economically speaking, the EU is pushing for the level playing field provisions and will continue so as long as the UK desires to return to the EU market. If the UK keeps resisting such provisions, it is highly unlikely that the UK will reach any comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU anytime soon. To make matters worse, prime minister Johnson meticulously said in a statement that his administration intends that the future relationship must be based on a Free Trade Agreement that enables the UK to take absolute control of its own regulatory affairs and trade policy.

?????(Guardian 2020) The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Barnier in his interview with Guardian said that the British government had “underestimated” the consequences of leaving the EU and its single market and customs union, and now faced “a difficulty to accept the consequences”. He also warned that even if the obtaining of fair trade competition through trade talks is in the best interest of both sides, the EU-UK free-trade deal might be blocked by any national or regional parliaments, thus sending them both to zero, where they started. Having understood that the ratification of the free-trade deal could take a while, the UK had no choice but to negotiate “the principle elements” of the free trade to refrain itself from going down the economic hill in 2020. This is how the UK winded up with a basic free-trade deal with the EU.?

???????At first glance, things may look as if they worked out pretty well for the UK, you might be thinking to yourself. Hold that thought for a second. For the UK goods and services, the EU has been the biggest market for several decades, therefore the UK’s economy did well if not thrive. After the UK had been withdrawn from the EU’s customs union and single market, regulatory barriers to both goods and services of the UK have seen a significant increase. That being said, it is not hard to realize that British goods and services are becoming unwanted due to Brexit, and outcomes are presumed by the experts as follows. The think-tank called “the UK in a Changing Europe” inferred back in 2019 that Boris Johnson’s Brexit proposal may end up reducing the UK GDP per capita ten years after Brexit by between 2.3% and 7% when compared with carrying on with the EU(Various et al., 2020).

??Suffice to say, it was inferred that the immensity of the economic impact of Brexit will have some major implications even for the public finances. Paradoxically, the negative impacts are believed to outweigh any gains that may potentially be resulted after the elimination of the UK’s EU contributions. At the end of the day, the above implications indicate that the economic impacts of Brexit on trade and growth generally, will be hit severely. On the bright side, it can be mitigated if the UK is willing to have a more liberal immigration policy (Various et al., 2020).?

According to Professor Anand Menon, when all the above facts are taken into account, it can be assumed that under Boris Johnson’s proposals future relationship seems to be based on a “Canada minus” model, to put it another way, the EU and the British government may end up engineering a free trade agreement that is less comprehensive than the EU-Canada agreement in the foreseeable future. As a result of this, UK living standards will gradually reduce and living costs are expected to skyrocket in times to come.

Impacts of Migration

????????When the UK still was a member of the EU, the British companies had frictionless experience recruiting European workers, thus having no problem with the inadequacy of employees. For that reason, it was fairly easy to hire or replace the workers since the free movement of people in the bloc was granted. And after Brexit happened, the Johnson’s administration signaled that the new immigration system will only prioritize workers who are deemed white-color workers by the government. (Azeez, 2021)“Time running out to save the UK industry from worker shortages, say business leaders' ', is one of the many headlines on the mainstream media outlets like BBC and CNN these days. Since the day Brexit came into effect, most migrants who resided in the UK had to leave their low-paid jobs. This meant to encourage the British businesses to revise their business commitment to their employees, hire more British citizens, and pay them more than what they have been paying to migrant workers. Alas, things have not gone as they were expected. London (CNN Business) wrote that most UK service stations are ghosted due to the worker shortages; also supermarket shelves are empty due to the disruptions in ports because they are experiencing a lack of labor. It became very difficult to find workers and keep the businesses going, for farmers, retailers, logistics industries, and restaurants after Britain left the EU. As one would expect, many businesses have been hit severely as the covid pandemic spread across the UK. Now the social distance restrictions are being lifted, many hospitality-related businesses find themselves struggling to find enough staff to carry out their businesses, therefore most business leaders are begging the government to add more hospitality jobs to the list of skilled workers in order to make it under Brexit rules. Another example, most supermarkets have been having struggles to retain some of the foods stocked, and McDonald’s temporarily ceased serving milkshakes. In addition, logistics industries can no longer meet the expectations of their customers since they do not have enough lobby and truck drivers. To take the edge off the pain of the logistics industry, which the UK heavily relied on during the pandemic, the government issued 5000 visas for foreign truck drivers. However, industry groups made it clear that Britain is facing a much bigger shortage of drivers. For example, the British Retail Consortium director told CNN Business that "drivers are the glue which holds our supply chains together and also? warned about the disruptions during the holiday season this winter. However, Prime Minister Boris made it explicit that his government won’t cut any more slack. Mr. Boris finds the very idea of fixing all problems with uncontrolled immigration the UK is facing right now, unacceptable. Meat industry leaders have been complaining bitterly about the shortage of butchers. They desperately need workers so that they can carry through their businesses in these difficult times. Pig and cow farmers find themselves in trouble too due to the shortfall of the butchers and drivers. Drivers and butchers are the backbones of this industry, without them Rob Mutimer told BBC radio that with a mounting backlog of the livestock, approximately one hundred thousand pigs might be facing mass animal culling. The below statement indicates that the situation will degrade more as the holiday season approaches. The panic buying was seen in the US when the covid first began to spread across the states. Moreover, that very panic-buying is what the future holds for the UK unless the government abruptly takes action to handle the labor shortages according to BBC reporter Robert Plummer.

??????????Unfortunately, experts say that this is just the beginning of this giant upheaval caused by Brexit. The situation is believed to get even direr unless Boris's administration decides to ease Brexit immigration rules. Needless to say, if you think like a majority, you might be under the impression, as you read my essay, that the above-named jobs are all blue-color jobs, that being so it doesn’t really affect the economy as the rumors spread by the anti-Brexit media outlets. I am going to need you to hold that thought once again. The banks in the UK such as the CityUK began expounding their mounting concern about significant cost increase when it comes to recruiting high-skilled talents. They need qualified experts in order to be able to compete on the global stage. Therefore, financial sectors are pressing the government to modernize its immigration processes to stay competitive. More precisely, what they want the government to do for them right now is to make it trouble-free for workers to come to the United Kingdom for a short period of time. They also want the British government to negotiate with other EU member states to allow the workers from the UK to easily move across the borders. All above given illustrations tell one thing and one thing only, that is since the Brexit that followed by the disastrous pandemic, the problems concerning the economy of the country have become worse, and needs a set of comprehensive solutions to address them once and for all. Otherwise, serious problems, namely consumer price inflation that is occurring now, will get to the point in which the British people will not be able to recover from the consequences.

The environmental impact of Brexit

?????In this paragraph, I will attempt to delineate what Brexit means for the UK’s environment. To begin with, I would like to mention that Britain’s four-decades-long membership of the EU, upgraded the UK’s reputation on environmental policymaking. (Various et al., 2020) Back in the 70s, the UK was ridiculed as the “Dirty Man of Europe” in relation to environmental issues. However, the UK gradually transformed itself from being the dirty man of Europe to an occasional leader when it came to environmental problems. To many people’s surprise, the environment was barely mentioned when the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign began. Even if environmental issues were not at the center of Brexit’s agenda, green movements have been gaining momentum lately. (Client Earth) stated that back in 2019, the environment had become a major focus for voters and politicians. The reason why that winded up happening was due to the plethora of droughts, floods, and wild fires occurring in the country and throughout. The above-illustrated indications gave off the impression that the concerns with the environment would further be amplified even with the pandemic under the new Brexit rules. Nonetheless, as the social distancing rules were eased, the attention from environmental issues has been shifted to retrieve the economy of the UK, while sleeping on the issues in regard to the environment. Evidently, the pandemic has resulted in the increase of usage of single-use plastics which takes up to hundred years to dispose of, and litter from medical waste and masks has seen a massive increase. Also, as the ease on the covid safety measures were announced the number of car journeys is believed to have bounced back to pre-lockdown levels thus resuming the release of huge carbon dioxide, while the use of public transports remains low. Thus, what happened to UK environmental laws after Brexit are as follows. Brexit enabled the UK government to set its own targets, policies, and law concerning the protection of the environment. Woefully, the current government of the UK seems to intend to pass regulations and standards that contradict the law by the EU on environmental protection. To put it another way, Johnson's government will water down environmental protection by imposing a weaker set of regulations and standards. This clearly means that the future of environmental protection is looking grim.