Today at 11:00 p.M. the United Kingdom will leave the European Union. No immediate changes will occur in citizen’s day-to-day lives. The UK will still pay dues to the EU, will still be allowed to travel freely, and will still be bound to laws of the EU. This is simply “phase two”, a time where the EU and the UK will attempt to negotiate a trade deal by December 31st, 2020. This, however, has been described by experts as “nearly impossible,” as trade deals typically take years or decades to finalize, especially with the EU’s convoluted internal politics. Already they’re off to a bad start, as much of Europe has unreasonable expectations for the deal. France is threatening to withhold support from the deal, which would be disastrous since Boris Johnson is committed to completing this without a deadline extension. And if the UK were to leave without a deal being made, that would cause a huge economic and political crisis.
Personally, I believe that Boris Johnson won’t actually refuse to ask for a deadline extension. He insisted he wasn’t going to last time, and yet Parliament coerced him to. The same will happen this time. Johnson will play all high and mighty, he’ll pretend like he isn’t going to back down until he gets what he wants, but as the deadline draws closer he’ll start compromising more and more. Nobody wants Brexit to go through with no finalized deal, so towards the end both parties will begin to bend, the UK more than the EU.
Additionally, Scotland and Northern Ireland are immensely unhappy with this decision. Scotland is considering calling for another vote on whether they want to leave the UK and rejoin the EU. In the initial Brexit vote, Scotland’s majority voted to stay. Northern Ireland is pushing for a discussion on their land border with Ireland. This is because they trade a lot with Ireland, and if this issue isn’t addressed they’ll have a much harder time trading with them.