A tired Britain prepares for a new era

The New Street of Birmingham, the UK's second-largest city, seemed busy last week. The UK's second lockdown has been lifted, and, although Birmingham still has strict COVID-19 rules in place, retail shops are open.

As people queued up outside shops, a large group of protesters appeared. The timing is crucial: The UK's transitional period will be over in three weeks and its relationship with the EU will be determined in a few days. In a different time, this would have been on everyone's minds. But not in 2020. The protest was against COVID-19 vaccinations.

Chris Featherstone, a Ph.D. researcher at the University of Birmingham, thinks that fear and fatigue are the reasons why people no longer talk about Brexit.

"The thing I hear the most when people talk about Brexit is 'I want this to be over,' even if they are Leave or Remain, they want it done and gone. We had so much bad news about COVID-19 that our tolerance is taken up with that," he says.

Whatever form Brexit takes, even those who voted for the UK to leave are prepared for some bumps in the road ahead.

"Looking at the potential problems from a business perspective, it's pretty awful. But I am one of those people who say, 'that's the decision we took.' I won't moan about the fallout, we just have to get on with it. It is on the British people to make it work," says Keith Rowland, a manager in the automotive industry.

Regional differences

Despite the potential disruptions to the country's economy, Brexit does not seem to be as present as it was in people's discussions after the referendum in 2016. But location does matter.

Birmingham, where Rowland is located, does not look like a nation's second-largest city. Small high street shops are shut and large stores are struggling; unemployment rates are high. Yet Birmingham does not yet see the direct effects of a no-deal scenario because it is far from the European border.

Bryony Rudkin, a deputy leader at a local council in Ipswich on the eastern coast of England, paints a daunting picture. Rudkin lives near Felixstowe, which is the UK's largest container port. Port authorities are currently dealing with a logistical nightmare with ships unable to unload the large amount of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) that was ordered. Containers full of PPE now pile up in the docks of Ipswich.

"What people are saying is that it's not going to get any better with Brexit, and effectively we are going to be like Kent – a lorry park. What you think about Brexit depends on where you are in the UK. It's kind of in your face, quite physical with these containers which tells us that it's not going to be very organized," says Rudkin.   

Rudkin says she's aware that some people's views have changed, which is also evident from the results of 87 combined polls compiled by the project"What UK Thinks." Polls show that people would have voted for the UK to remain in the EU. However, those DW spoke to haven't changed their minds.

James*, a Ph.D. researcher in northern Britain, decided he no longer wanted to be part of the EU when the Lisbon Treaty was ratified without having the option to vote on it in a referendum.    

"I was never anti-EU in any way. I thought the idea of a single market made complete sense. I became concerned with the project when the EU started driving towards a supra-national entity that was eventually going to become a state where vetoes were increasingly falling away," he says. James thinks that Prime Minister Boris Johnson could soften on positions such as fishing, however, on issues that have to do with law, regulations and governance, he should remain tough otherwise the point of becoming a sovereign nation again will be lost.

Insecurity in a post-Brexit Britain

For most people, Brexit has created divisions in society that will take many years to mend. "Brexit as a political issue or an ideology if you like, has become a theology. People from either side first identify as Remain or Leave and then as anything else," says James.

For those who come from the EU and have made the UK their home, what comes next has become more personal due to the direct impact it will have on them.

Paula Schwever, a Spanish-German Ph.D. researcher at the University of Birmingham who's been living in the UK for five years, says that Brexit created a fear of not belonging. That led her to start the process of becoming a permanent citizen in the UK.

"The government is thriving on the psychological insecurity it created. If I have residency, nobody can classify me as [being] the other [one]. If you look at this from an economic perspective, state and citizenship are [in] an economic exchange," she says, rather than it being an issue of gaining equal rights.

Dr. Charlotte Galpin of the University of Birmingham, who specializes in European identity and Euroskepticism, argues that the damage was done back in January: "The potential of a no deal will be much more damaging. But we're still going to be out of the single market, we've still pulled out of decision-making institutions, British citizens have lost their EU citizenship and EU citizens have lost their EU citizenship within the UK."

Back in Birmingham, the alt-right anti-vaccination brochures, US flags and Donald Trump 2024 placards on display speak volumes: Many Brits have moved on from Brexit.

*Name has been changed.