Brexit: a thing that wasn’t meant to happen has now happened | thearticle

The UK has been fully detached from the EU for a month — how is Brexit going so far? Since the beginning of the year, I’ve been gathering Brexit stories into a single Twitter thread. Between

them, those headlines give a very clear indication of how Brexit is going. This is what one month’s-worth of Brexit news looks like: “’Clean shift’ as euro share trading exits London for

EU” — _Reuters_, 4 January “Bank of England Governor Bailey warns Brexit Will Bring Big Economic Losses” — _Bloomberg_, 6 January “Exclusive: ‘It’s a catastrophe’: Scottish fishermen halt

exports due to Brexit red tape” —_ Reuters_, 8 January “’We’ve lost 30 years’: Brexit shatters supply chains for French fish hub” —_ Reuters_, 12 January “Scottish fish prices ‘collapsing’

by as much as 80% due to Brexit bureaucracy, industry warns” — _Independent_, 12 January “N Ireland food shortages set to worsen, say UK supermarket heads” — _Financial Times_, 12 January

“Brexit Deal May Mean Less British Cod for Fish & Chips” —_ Bloomberg_, 13 January “Millions of Dollars of Artworks Left U.K. Before Brexit Cutoff” — _Bloomberg_, 13 January “Average

cost of shipping a lorryload of goods to Britain from Germany rose 26% in 1st week of 2021, from France 39%.” — _The Times_, 14 January “German freight giant DB Schenker pauses UK

deliveries” — _BBC_, 14 January “Brexit Driving Top Dealmakers Out of London and Into the EU” —_ Bloomberg_, 15 January “You misled us over Brexit deal, angry fishermen tell Johnson” — _The

Times_, 15 January “Exports to EU to plunge by more than one-third because of Boris Johnson’s Brexit trade deal, study warns” — _The Independent_, 15 January “Post-Brexit customs systems not

fit for purpose, say meat exporters” —_ BBC_, 15 January “Scottish fishermen ‘sailing to Denmark to land catch’” — _BBC_, 16 January “New York emerges winner as Brexit pushes swaps trading

from London” —amny.com, via_ Reuters_, 21 January Statement by the Cheshire Cheese Co: “It is with great sadness we must stop sending our cheese to the EU. Due to an oversight in the Free

Trade deal it is impossible for us to send cheese to our EU online consumers. DEFRA has told us not to expect an exemption or change anytime soon. Investment & hope is lost today” —_

Twitter_, 22 January “Union in crisis as polls reveal voters want referendum on Scottish independence and united Ireland” — _The Times_, 23 January “Mastercard set to hike fees for UK

purchases from EU” — _Financial Times_, 24 January “First flashes of Brexit trade trouble appear in UK data” — _Reuters_, 28 January Many of these stories have been lost in the swirl of the

pandemic. But what they are telling us is that Brexit seems to be failing on its own terms. The assurances given by the politicians who pushed so hard to leave the EU are beginning to come

unstuck. Britain’s fishing industry is being crushed. Trade between the EU and Britain is weakening. London’s position as the world’s leading financial centre is under threat, as firms shift

their activity to the Continent. Britain will need to broker more deals with the EU, on services — which makes up nearly three quarters of the UK economy — and also financial services, on

which the US and EU recently agreed a deal. Worst of all, the Union is coming under pressure. If the SNP wins yet another landslide at the Scottish elections in May, then the fight for

another independence referendum will be on. I will continue to gather Brexit headlines on that Twitter thread, which you can see in full here. And remember, these stories above represent a

single month. 2021 is going to be a long year.