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Into the Brexit Unknown, a Divided United Kingdom Goes It Alone

Reuters

   LONDON - The United Kingdom exits the European Union's orbit Thursday,
   turning its back on a tempestuous 48-year liaison with the European
   project for an uncertain post-Brexit future in its most significant
   geopolitical shift since the loss of empire.

   Brexit, in essence, takes place at the strike of midnight in Brussels,
   or 2300 London time (GMT), when the United Kingdom leaves de-facto
   membership that continued for a transition period after it formally
   left the bloc January 31.

   For five years, the frenzied gyrations of the Brexit crisis dominated
   European affairs, haunted the sterling markets and tarnished the United
   Kingdom's reputation as a confident pillar of Western economic and
   political stability.

   After years of Brexit vitriol, one of the most significant events in
   European history since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union will pass with
   little fanfare: The United Kingdom will slip away, serenaded by the
   silence of the COVID-19 crisis.

   Supporters cast Brexit as the dawn of a newly independent "global
   Britain," but it has weakened the bonds that bind England, Wales,
   Scotland and Northern Ireland into a $3 trillion economy.

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