Brexit anniversary: ​​what has changed since the UK voted to leave the EU 6 years ago today?

David Cameron was Prime Minister, Jose Mourinho ran Manchester United and The Neales were number one on the UK Singles Chart – but what else has changed since the 2016 Brexit vote?

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Today marks the sixth anniversary of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union – but what has really changed?

The June 23, 2016 outcome led to the resignation of then Prime Minister David Cameron and the subsequent rise and fall of Theresa May.

Then came the so-called “oven-ready” Brexit deal, which took Boris Johnson to Downing Street and gave him an overwhelming majority in the 2019 election.

When the question was put to voters, Britain voted 52% to 48% to back away from the Brussels project, a result that sparked a turbulent period in British politics.

What has actually changed since Brexit?

From the way people travel, the color of the UK passport, buying goods on the continent and using your phone while on holiday in Europe, Brexit has brought a host of changes.

Here are the major changes in daily life since Britain voted to secede from the EU.

freedom of movement

passport queues. You’ve probably heard about it.

With the Prime Minister’s Brexit deal, Great Britain left the single market and with it the free movement rules were abolished.

Brits no longer have the right to live and work anywhere in the EU they want, and vice versa, in a move ministers say will help them tackle immigration.

For this reason, UK citizens entering and exiting EU member states must queue at airports for “non-EU citizens” and show their burgundy (or bluish if a post-Brexit travel document has already been issued) passports. get stamped.

roaming charges

When Brussels scrapped mobile phone roaming charges in 2017, it was seen as a major breakthrough for consumers.

But the Brexit vote always meant that there was no guarantee that this scenario would hold once the UK was on its own and agreed a new deal with the EU (and once the transition period ended, during which all rules stayed the same).

Exempted from the EU roaming ban since early 2021, companies have slowly announced they will charge or reduce the allowance for UK holidaymakers heading to Europe.

EE, Vodafone and Three have all started recharging customers, as will Tesco Mobile from 2023.

Smaller provider gifffgaff announced on Wednesday that it will reduce the data package customers can use when traveling in Europe from 5GB from a potential 20GB.

O2 and Virgin Mobile have so far resisted reintroducing the charges.

import fees

As well as leaving the single market, Mr Johnson’s Brexit deal also resulted in the UK also leaving the customs union in January 2021.

While this has broader implications for sectors such as auto, buyers in the UK are also being impacted.

Buying goods from EU sellers worth more than £135 means import VAT will have to be paid and buyers may also have to pay customs duties, warns HM Revenue & Customs.

Launch of the Covid vaccine

The UK was one of the fastest countries to introduce vaccinations against the coronavirus.

Boris Johnson and his cabinet ministers regularly boasted that Brexit had proved a boon as it allowed them to speed up the process of vaccinating the public rather than having to work with 27 other EU countries.

Shortening the approval process for regulating Covid-19 vaccines and forging individual deals with big pharmaceutical companies, rather than doing it as a Brussels-coordinated bloc, meant Britain was ahead of Europe when it came to embracing people to bump

Trouble in Northern Ireland

Anger at Theresa May’s Brexit policy stemmed from her suggestion to prevent friction in Northern Ireland, a divided community still scarred by sectarian violence.

Mr Johnson’s alternative Northern Ireland protocol brought Conservative MPs on board and promised to have solved Mrs May’s problems.

But Unionist dissatisfaction with the protocol, which has led to border controls on goods moving between the UK and Northern Ireland, has led to the collapse of Stormont and drawn the UK and EU into a tense standoff over how to improve the situation can.

Six years after the 2016 referendum, the question of how Northern Ireland – separated from the UK by the Irish Sea and linked to the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state with a land border – remains unresolved in the future of the UK after Brexit.