If you don’t live in the UK then you may have not noticed many of the effects from Brexit, which was officially enacted five years ago. If you do live in the UK then, if you work in the tourism industry or have travelled abroad since 31 January 2020 then you may have noticed some changes. In no particular order, this is what I, personally, have seen:
- Border waiting times. At either St Pancras or in various airports I’ve noticed longer queues as more checks are now required to leave the UK. When arriving in foreign countries having to now go into non-EU queues has meant longer waiting times (usually because travellers from outside of Europe are subjected to deeper questioning)
- Passport cost. Now every time I enter the EU I get a stamp, because my passport gets stamped on exit, too, that’s half a page of my passport being used for each EU trip. With a 54-page UK passport costing £100.50, that works out as an additional £0.93p expense per trip
- Time in Europe. I’d long planned to spend a year or so living in Europe, and had found somewhere to live in April 2016. Then Brexit happened. Now it’s become financially impossible to live in most of the EU and I have to be vigilant for how long I spend there so as not to go over my 90 days in 180 day allowance
- Currency cost. Since the Brexit referendum was first announced in May 2015 the GBP£ has devalued against the € by about 13%. Holding a currency that has weakened that much in just a few years has made travelling to the Eurozone noticeably more expensive
- Health insurance. I’m no longer eligible for a free European Health Insurance Card (EHIC). Although I can get a Global Health Insurance Card (GHIC) this, unlike the EHIC, does not cover Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, or Switzerland
- Since Brexit was enacted I have got a dog. Before Brexit I could get a pet passport – a relatively simple process – but now taking Bounty out of the UK will involve an Animal Health Certificate, a more convoluted (and costly) process
I live in a very touristy area (30 million people visit my neighbourhood every year) and so I have noticed one positive about Brexit on local tourism: it seems much busier here, although this could partly be the post-pandemic travel boom in action. Because the UK has become so much cheaper for so many people it’s now far more affordable. Unfortunately the hotels and restaurants where these people eat are shutting at an incredible rate in part because of how many hospitality workers have returned to the EU with not enough skilled UK workers to replace them.
In summary: for me there is nothing to celebrate on this, the fifth anniversary of the implementation of Brexit and there seems to be zero political will to rectify the situation despite overwhelming evidence that the British public isn’t happy with the vast distance that’s been placed between us and the EU.
A Plan To Go 