5 years after Britain left the EU, the full impact of Brexit is still emerging

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has promised to “reset” relations with the EU after years of acrimony. But rejoining the bloc remains a distant prospect. (AP)
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Updated 31 January 2025
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5 years after Britain left the EU, the full impact of Brexit is still emerging

  • People and businesses are still wrestling with the economic, social and cultural aftershocks of a decision that divided the country
  • British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has promised to “reset” relations with the EU after years of acrimony

LONDON: Five years ago Friday, two crowds of people gathered near Britain’s Parliament — some with Union Jacks and cheers, others European Union flags and tears.
On Jan. 31, 2020 at 11 p.m. London time – midnight at EU headquarters in Brussels — the UK officially left the bloc after almost five decades of membership that had brought free movement and free trade between Britain and 27 other European countries.
For Brexit supporters, the UK was now a sovereign nation in charge of its own destiny. For opponents, it was an isolated and diminished country.
It was, inarguably, a divided nation that had taken a leap into the dark. Five years on, people and businesses are still wrestling with the economic, social and cultural aftershocks.
“The impact has been really quite profound,” said political scientist Anand Menon, who heads the think-tank UK in a Changing Europe. “It’s changed our economy.
“And our politics has been changed quite fundamentally as well,” he added. “We’ve seen a new division around Brexit becoming part of electoral politics.”
A decision that split the nation
An island nation with a robust sense of its historical importance, Britain had long been an uneasy member of the EU when it held a referendum in June 2016 on whether to remain or leave. Decades of deindustrialization, followed by years of public spending cuts and high immigration, made fertile ground for the argument that Brexit would let the UK “take back control” of its borders, laws and economy.
Yet the result — 52 percent to 48 percent in favor of leaving — came as a shock to many. Neither the Conservative government, which campaigned to stay in the EU, nor pro-Brexit campaigners had planned for the messy details of the split.
The referendum was followed by years of wrangling over divorce terms between a wounded EU and a fractious UK that caused gridlock in Parliament and ultimately defeated Prime Minister Theresa May. She resigned in 2019 and was replaced by Boris Johnson, who vowed to “get Brexit done.”
It wasn’t so simple.
A blow to the British economy
The UK left without agreement on its future economic relationship with the EU, which accounted for half the country’s trade. The political departure was followed by 11 months of testy negotiations on divorce terms, culminating in agreement on Christmas Eve in 2020.
The bare-bones trade deal saw the UK leave the bloc’s single market and customs union. It meant goods could move without tariffs or quotas, but brought new red tape, costs and delays for trading businesses.
“It has cost us money. We are definitely slower and it’s more expensive. But we’ve survived,” said Lars Andersen, whose London-based company, My Nametags, ships brightly colored labels for kids’ clothes and school supplies to more than 150 countries.
To keep trading with the EU, Andersen has had to set up a base in Ireland, through which all orders destined for EU countries must pass before being sent on. He says the hassle has been worth it, but some other small businesses he knows have stopped trading with the EU or moved manufacturing out of the UK
Julianne Ponan, founder and CEO of allergen-free food producer Creative Nature, had a growing export business to EU countries that was devastated by Brexit. Since then she has successfully turned to markets in the Middle East and Australia, something she says has been a positive outcome of leaving the EU.
Having mastered the new red tape, she is now gradually building up business with Europe again.
“But we’ve lost four years of growth there,” she said. “And that’s the sad part. We would be a lot further ahead in our journey if Brexit hadn’t happened.”
The government’s Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that UK exports and imports will both be around 15 percent lower in the long run than if the UK had remained in the EU, and economic productivity 4 percent less than it otherwise would have been.
Brexit supporters argue that short-term pain will be offset by Britain’s new freedom to strike trade deals around the world. Since Brexit. the UK has signed trade agreements with countries including Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
But David Henig, a trade expert at the European Center for International Political Economy, said they have not offset the hit to trade with Britain’s nearest neighbors.
“The big players aren’t so much affected,” Henig said. “We still have Airbus, we still have Scotch whisky. We still do defense, big pharmaceuticals. But the mid-size players are really struggling to keep their exporting position. And nobody new is coming in to set up.”
A lesson in unintended consequences
In some ways, Brexit has not played out as either supporters or opponents anticipated. The COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine piled on more economic disruption, and made it harder to discern the impact of Britain’s EU exit on the economy.
In one key area, immigration, Brexit’s impact has been the opposite of what many predicted. A desire to reduce immigration was a major reason many people voted to leave the EU, yet immigration today is far higher than before Brexit because the number of visas granted for workers from around the world has soared.
Meanwhile, the rise of protectionist political leaders, especially newly returned US President Donald Trump, has raised the stakes for Britain, now caught between its near neighbors in Europe and its trans-Atlantic “special relationship” with the US
“The world is a far less forgiving place now than it was in 2016 when we voted to leave,” Menon said.
Can Britain and the EU be friends again?
Polls suggest UK public opinion has soured on Brexit, with a majority of people now thinking it was a mistake. But rejoining seems a distant prospect. With memories of arguments and division still raw, few people want to go through all that again.
Labour Party Prime Minister Keir Starmer, elected in July 2024, has promised to “reset” relations with the EU, but has ruled out rejoining the customs union or single market. He’s aiming for relatively modest changes such as a making it easier for artists to tour and for professionals to have their qualifications recognized, as well as on closer cooperation on law enforcement and security.
EU leaders have welcomed the change of tone from Britain, but have problems of their own amid growing populism across the continent. The UK is no longer a top priority.
“I completely understand, it’s difficult to get back together after quite a harsh divorce,” said Andersen, who nonetheless hopes Britain and the EU will draw closer with time. “I suspect it will happen, but it will happen slowly and subtly without politicians particularly shouting about it.”


France wants Europe cooperation on visas over expulsion of undocumented migrants

Updated 8 sec ago
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France wants Europe cooperation on visas over expulsion of undocumented migrants

  • European countries to cooperate and start cutting back visas available to nationals of countries that refuse to take back illegal migrants expelled by Paris
Paris: France’s foreign minister said Wednesday that he wanted “all” European countries to cooperate and start cutting back visas available to nationals of countries that refuse to take back illegal migrants expelled by Paris.
Jean-Noel Barrot spoke after an Algerian-born man went on a stabbing rampage in the eastern French city of Mulhouse at the weekend, killing one person and wounding several others in what President Emmanuel Macron called an “Islamist terrorist act.”
The 37-year-old suspect was on a terrorism watch list and subject to a deportation order.
France had attempted to expel him multiple times, but Algeria refused to cooperate, French authorities say.
“If a country does not cooperate with the French authorities, I will propose that all European countries restrict the issuing of visas at the same time,” Barrot told broadcaster France 2.
“When we do it on a national level, it doesn’t work unfortunately,” he added.
But if foreign governments cooperate, the European Union could consider reducing customs tariffs for such countries, Barrot proposed.
“It is a particularly powerful lever,” he said.
French authorities are seeking to tighten immigration policies and border controls, in a move emblematic of the right-ward shift in French politics.
“If we want our migration policy to be as effective as possible, there are many things that will be much more effective if we do it at a European level,” he said.
Prime Minister Francois Bayrou was set later Wednesday to chair a meeting on immigration controls.
Bayrou has called for a national debate on immigration and what it means to be French, suggesting that immigrants were “flooding” France.

US and Ukraine near an economic deal with mineral rights but no security promise

Updated 25 min 54 sec ago
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US and Ukraine near an economic deal with mineral rights but no security promise

  • Trump called it a big deal that could be worth a trillion dollars
  • Kyiv hopes that signing the agreement will ensure the continued flow of US military support that Ukraine urgently needs

KYIV: Ukraine and the US have reached an agreement on a framework for a broad economic deal that would include access to Ukraine’s rare earth minerals, three senior Ukrainian officials said Tuesday.
The officials, who were familiar with the matter, spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. One of them said that Kyiv hopes that signing the agreement will ensure the continued flow of US military support that Ukraine urgently needs.
The agreement could be signed as early as Friday and plans are being drawn up for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to travel to Washington to meet President Donald Trump, according to one of the Ukrainian officials.
Another official said the agreement would provide an opportunity for Zelensky and Trump to discuss continued military aid to Ukraine, which is why Kyiv is eager to finalize the deal.
Trump, speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, said he’d heard that Zelensky was coming and added that “it’s okay with me, if he’d like to, and he would like to sign it together with me.”
Trump called it a big deal that could be worth a trillion dollars. “It could be whatever, but it’s rare earths and other things.”
According to one Ukrainian official, some technical details are still to be determined. However, the draft does not include a contentious Trump administration proposal to give the US $500 billion worth of profits from Ukraine’s rare earth minerals as compensation for its wartime assistance to Kyiv.
Instead, the US and Ukraine would have joint ownership of a fund, and Ukraine would in the future contribute 50 percent of future proceeds from state-owned resources, including minerals, oil, and gas. One official said the deal had better terms of investments and another one said that Kyiv secured favorable amendments and viewed the outcome as “positive.”
The deal does not, however, include security guarantees. One official said that this would be something the two presidents would discuss when they meet.
The progress in negotiating the deal comes after Trump and Zelensky traded sharp rhetoric last week about their differences over the matter.
Zelensky said he balked at signing off on a deal that US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pushed during a visit to Kyiv earlier this month, and the Ukrainian leader objected again days later during a meeting in Munich with Vice President JD Vance because the American proposal did not include security guarantees.
Trump then called Volodymyr Zelensky “a dictator without elections” and claimed his support among voters was near rock-bottom.
But the two sides made significant progress during a three-day visit to Ukraine last week by retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine and Russia.
The idea was initially proposed last fall by Zelensky as part of his plan to strengthen Kyiv’s hand in future negotiations with Moscow.


South Korea births rose last year on surge in marriage

Updated 26 February 2025
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South Korea births rose last year on surge in marriage

  • The fertility rate remains far below the 2.1 children needed to maintain South Korea’s population of 51 million

Seoul: The number of births in South Korea rose last year for the first time in more than a decade on the back of a rise in marriages, officials said on Wednesday, bucking a trend for a country battling a demographic crisis.
South Korea has one of the world’s longest life expectancies and lowest birth rates — a combination that presents a looming demographic challenge.
Seoul has poured billions of dollars into efforts to encourage women to have more children and maintain population stability.
The crude birth rate — the number of babies born per 1,000 people — was 4.7, interrupting a continuous downward trend since 2014, according to preliminary data from Statistics Korea.
And the fertility rate, or the average number of babies a woman is expected to have in her lifetime, was 0.75, “up 0.03 from 0.72 in 2023,” it said.
“The number of births in 2024 was 238,300, an increase of 8,300 (3.6 percent) from the previous year,” the report added.
Park Hyun-jeong, an official from Statistics Korea, attributed the rise to an increase in marriages as well as shifting demographics.
“The population has seen a significant increase in the number of people in their early 30s,” she told a press conference.
“This has had a major impact,” Park explained.
“Additionally, many marriages that were delayed due to Covid-19 have now taken place, and this upward trend continues.”
Park said the number of marriages last year had been the most since 1996 — “the highest on record.”
The average maternal age at childbirth in 2024 was 33.7 years, Seoul said, one of the highest in the world.
But the fertility rate remains far below the 2.1 children needed to maintain South Korea’s population of 51 million.
At current rates, the population will nearly halve to 26.8 million by 2100, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle.
Experts say there are multiple reasons for the low birth rate, from high child-rearing costs and property prices to a notoriously competitive society that makes well-paid jobs difficult to secure.
The double burden for working mothers of managing the brunt of household chores and childcare while also maintaining their careers is another key factor, they say.
The South Korean government offers cash subsidies, babysitting services and support for infertility treatment.
But the number of births has until now continued to decline.
Neighbouring Japan is grappling with the same issue — it has the world’s second-oldest population after Monaco and the country’s relatively strict immigration rules mean it faces growing labor shortages.


Adnan Syed’s murder conviction still stands as he seeks sentence reduction in ‘Serial’ case

Updated 26 February 2025
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Adnan Syed’s murder conviction still stands as he seeks sentence reduction in ‘Serial’ case

  • Syed has maintained his innocence from the beginning, but many questions remain unanswered even after the “Serial” podcast combed through the evidence, reexamined legal arguments and interviewed witnesses

BALTIMORE: Despite documented problems with the evidence against him and an earlier request from prosecutors to clear his record, Adnan Syed will remain a convicted murderer, according to court papers filed Tuesday night.
The decision from Baltimore prosecutors comes ahead of a scheduled hearing Wednesday morning where a judge will consider whether to reduce Syed’s sentence, but this means the conviction itself is no longer in question.
It is the latest wrinkle in an ongoing legal odyssey that garnered a massive following after being featured in the “Serial” podcast over a decade ago.
Syed’s attorneys recently filed the request for a sentence reduction under Maryland’s Juvenile Restoration Act, a relatively new state law that provides a potential pathway to release for people serving long prison terms for crimes committed when they were minors. That request is supported by prosecutors.
Meanwhile, Baltimore State’s Attorney Ivan Bates announced Tuesday that his office is withdrawing a previously filed motion to vacate Syed’s conviction in the 1999 killing of his high school ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, who was found strangled to death and buried in a makeshift grave.
“I did not make this decision lightly, but it is necessary to preserve the credibility of our office and maintain public trust in the justice system,” Bates said in a statement.
The original motion to vacate — which was filed by Bates’ predecessor Marilyn Mosby — won Syed his freedom in 2022. But his conviction was reinstated following a procedural challenge from Lee’s family. The Maryland Supreme Court ordered a redo of the conviction vacatur hearing after finding that the family didn’t receive adequate notice to attend in person.
Since the prosecutor’s office changed hands in the meantime, the decision of whether to withdraw the motion fell to Bates.
Instead of asking a judge to again consider Syed’s guilt or innocence, Bates chose a different path. He supported Syed’s motion for a reduced sentence — without addressing the underlying conviction.
Bates said that since his release in 2022, Syed has demonstrated he is a productive member of society whose continued freedom is “in the interest of justice.” He said the case “is precisely what legislators envisioned when they crafted the Juvenile Restoration Act.”
The legislation was passed amid growing consensus that such defendants are especially open to rehabilitation, partly because brain science shows cognitive development continues well beyond the teenage years. Syed was 17 when Lee was killed.
Now 43, he has been working at Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative and caring for aging relatives since his release, according to court filings. His father died in October after a long illness.
Bates was facing a Friday deadline to decide on the motion to vacate.
After reviewing the motion filed by his predecessor, Bates concluded that it contained “false and misleading statements that undermine the integrity of the judicial process,” he said in a statement Tuesday.
Attorneys for the victim’s family had argued that prosecutors should address the integrity of Syed’s conviction before the court considered reducing his sentence. Prosecutors “should not be allowed to duck the issue by hiding behind” his motion for a reduced sentence, attorneys wrote in a recent filing.
Syed has maintained his innocence from the beginning, but many questions remain unanswered even after the “Serial” podcast combed through the evidence, reexamined legal arguments and interviewed witnesses. The series debuted in 2014 and drew millions of listeners who became armchair detectives.
Rife with legal twists and turns, the case has recently pitted criminal justice reform efforts against the rights of crime victims and their families, whose voices are often at odds with a growing movement to acknowledge and correct systemic racism, police misconduct and prosecutorial missteps.
When prosecutors sought to vacate Syed’s conviction in 2022, they cited numerous problems with the case, including alternative suspects and unreliable evidence presented at trial. A judge agreed to vacate the conviction and free Syed. Prosecutors in Mosby’s office later chose not to refile charges after they said DNA testing excluded Syed as a suspect.
Even though the appellate courts reinstated his conviction, they allowed Syed to remain free while the case continued.


Indonesia residents run outside as shallow quake hits

Updated 26 February 2025
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Indonesia residents run outside as shallow quake hits

  • The country’s meteorological agency gave a lower magnitude of 6.0 and said there was no potential for a tsunami

JAKARTA: A shallow 6.1-magnitude earthquake hit near the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on Wednesday, the United States Geological Survey said, forcing residents to flee outside but with no damage or casualties reported.
The tremor hit at 6:55 am local time (2255 GMT) at a depth of 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) with the epicenter offshore near North Sulawesi province, according to the USGS.
The country’s meteorological agency gave a lower magnitude of 6.0 and said there was no potential for a tsunami.
Locals in North Sulawesi described the panic when the quake struck.
“I had just woken up when I realized it was an earthquake. It was strong, swaying from side to side,” Gita Waloni, a 25-year-old guest at a hotel in North Minahasa district in the province told AFP.
“Objects inside my rooms rattled. I decided to get out. I was so scared there would be an aftershock while I was inside the lift. All other guests had also fled.”
The vast archipelago nation experiences frequent earthquakes due to its position on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of intense seismic activity where tectonic plates collide that stretches from Japan through Southeast Asia and across the Pacific basin.
A magnitude-6.2 quake that shook Sulawesi in January 2021 killed more than 100 people and left thousands homeless.
In 2018, a magnitude-7.5 quake and subsequent tsunami in Palu on Sulawesi killed more than 2,200 people.
And in 2004, a magnitude-9.1 quake struck Aceh province, causing a tsunami and killing more than 170,000 people in Indonesia.