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Britain calls time on almost half a century of European Union membership this week, striking out alone in a historic move that has bitterly divided the country.

At 11:00pm (2300 GMT) on January 31, the UK will become the first country to leave the 28-nation EU, the worlds largest single market area that it joined in 1973.

Nothing will immediately change, owing to a transition period negotiated between London and Brussels to allow both sides to agree a new future partnership.

Britons will be able to work in and trade freely with EU nations until December 31, and vice versa, although they will no longer be represented in the blocs institutions.

But legally, Britain will be out.

The exit process has been tortuous, with the years since the 2016 EU referendum marked by bitter arguments that paralysed the government and forced two prime ministers to quit.

Four years ago, 52 per cent of Britons backed Brexit but 48 per cent wanted to stay, and the country is still split between Leavers and Remainers.

The political chaos came to an abrupt halt last month when prime minister Boris Johnson won a decisive victory in a general election with a promise to Get Brexit Done.

The British parliament this week finally ratified the exit terms agreed with Brussels, and Johnson called on the country to move on.

Next Friday marks an important moment in the history of our United Kingdom, he said.

No matter how you voted in 2016, it is the time to look ahead with confidence to the global, trail-blazing country we will become over the next decade and heal past divisions.

The next stage of Brexit will also be a challenge, however.

Johnson wants to negotiate Britains new relationship with the EU, covering everything from trade to security cooperation, by the end of the year.

But Brussels says this is an impossible ask, arguing that London must either limit its ambitions or request more time.

Johnson has been an enthusiastic supporter of Brexit since leading the 2016 campaign, but he is wary of inflaming divisions with the celebrations.

Official events on Friday will be limited to a special prime ministerial address and a light display in Downing Street.

Ten million commemorative 50 pence coins will also be issued in the coming months, bearing the words Peace, Prosperity and friendship with all nations.

Previous batches had to be destroyed after Brexit was delayed three times due to political wrangling in London.

Some eurosceptics had pressed for parliaments famous Big Ben bell, which is being renovated, to be brought back into action to ring out on Brexit night.

But it was dropped after concerns about the cost. Johnson initially asked for public donations, only for officials to admit this was not possible.

A countdown clock will instead be projected onto the black bricks of Downing Street, while Nigel Farage, another key figure in the 2016 campaign, will hold a rally in nearby Parliament Square.

Britain has always had an uneasy relationship with Brussels and refused to join either the EUs single currency or the Schengen free travel area.

A minority of politicians have campaigned for decades to free Britain from what they see as an overly bureaucratic and unaccountable institution.

Concerns grew as large numbers of EU citizens moved to Britain to work, while for many, Brexit was also a protest against a political establishment they felt was ignoring them.

Yet for others across the continent, Brexit day will be a traumatic moment, ending any lingering hopes that the break-up could somehow be stopped.

We still love you, tweeted Donald Tusk, the former president of the European Council, this week after the divorce treaty was formally signed.

Many of the estimated 3.6 million EU citizens living in Britain, and one million Britons elsewhere in the bloc, fear an uncertain future.

Brexit has also severely strained ties between the four nations that make up the United Kingdom.

The devolved assemblies in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales all rejected the terms of the divorce, although for different reasons.

In Scotland, where pro-European sentiment remains strong, the nationalist government is pressing for a second referendum on independence.

Many in Northern Ireland meanwhile are concerned about special trading arrangements intended to keep open its land border with EU member Ireland.

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Britain readies to leave European Union - newagebd.net

Britain will not align with European Union rules after Brexit, the UK's Home Secretary has insisted, as the country prepares to leave the bloc on Friday.

Priti Patel said Britain would take back control of its laws, money and borders and will diverge from EU rules as it carves out free trade agreements.

The European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has warned that the UK's access to the single market would be weakened if it diverged from Brussels' rules.

But Ms Patel, in an interview with Sky's Sophy Ridge On Sunday, said: "In terms of divergence, we are not having alignment. We will be diverging. We want to take control of our laws, money and our borders.

"And to do that we will not be rule-takers - we will be setting our own laws and that is a fundamental feature of leaving the European Union."

However Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay appeared to adopt a softer approach, saying the UK would not diverge "just for the sake of it".

He told BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show: "We're coming out of the single market, we're coming out of the customs union. We're not just going to diverge just for the sake of it - we need to look at where the opportunities are.

"But it is true that we are going to have control of our approach to regulation and that's the very essence of Brexit: that we can do things differently, particularly where, for example, there is innovation, there is new technologies, there's things where we want to move quickly.

"Brexit at its very core is that we will have control of our laws, our regulation and that is why we can't be a rule-taker: we need to have that opportunity."

He said the UK's objective is to have a zero-tariff, zero-quota, ambitious trade policy - but to do that in "parallel in our talks with the rest of the world - and in particular with the US".

Read more:Negotiating post-Brexit trade deal will be challenging - McEntee

Business groups have raised concerns about the prospect of divergence from the single market, after the Chancellor Sajid Javid said last weekend there would not be alignment.

Their comments came as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Britain will become a global, trail-blazing country after it leaves the EU and unveiled the government's full plans to mark Brexit day.

Mr Johnson said he will "look ahead with confidence" to the future on Friday when the UK formally leaves the bloc - nearly four years since the referendum.

He will deliver a special address to the nation to mark the historic day and Downing Street will be illuminated with a light display designed to symbolise the strength and unity of the UK's four nations.

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Britain will diverge from EU rules after Brexit - Patel - RTE.ie

The UKs longest-serving MEP has said the country will not rejoin the EU in his lifetime and may never return to the bloc.

David Martin, who represented Scotland in the European Parliament from 1984 to 2019, said that even if a pro-EU government was elected, the UKs favourable membership terms would not be offered in new accession talks, making it politically impossible to rejoin.

The former Labour MEP, who lost his seat in the partys disastrous final EU election result last year, also warned that the case for allowing a second Scottish independence referendum in the wake of Brexit was almost unquestionable.

There is no going back, and I think we are now, for at least the rest of my life and possibly forever, a third country as far as the European Union is concerned, Martin told Scotland on Sunday.

I dont think anybody could kid themselves that theres a quick way back in. Once youre out, youre out, and all the benefits, if they were benefits of not being part of the euro, having a budget rebate, not being part of Schengen none of these things will we get again if we were to renegotiate.

So I think even if theres a change of government in five years time with a more pro-European view, membership is not going to be negotiated, so thats gone.

Martin was one of the leading voices in the European Parliament on trade, serving as the lead representative for the Socialist & Democratic party group on the International Trade Committee, and acting as the parliaments rapporteur on the EU-Singapore trade deal, which came into force at the end of last year.

Singapore took nine years from start to finish to negotiate a trade deal, he said. That was a fairly straightforward trade deal. Its naive in the extreme to think that the UK can do it in nine months.

My fear is were heading for a series of many deals to, as it were, literally keep the planes flying between Britain and Europe, to keep goods moving.

Martin said an agreement on foreign policy cooperation could be struck quickly, predicting that if Donald Trump remains in the White House, maybe the UK and the EU will actually be closer on foreign policy issues and multilateral institutions like the WTO than they will be to America.

But he added: I think the business side, the trade side is looking extremely, extremely negative if there are a series of small trade deals, actually the momentum in terms of getting a big deal will disappear and it could be a long time, if ever, before you get a deal.

Rather than the trade deal between Brussels and Canada, which Boris Johnson has said is his preferred model, Martin compared the situation facing the UK which has just 11 months to negotiate its future relationship with the EU before the end of the transition phase in December 2020 to the collapsed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and Washington.

There were a number of issues that the EU and the US could have signed off on in relation to bits of TTIP. Neither side wanted to do that because they thought if you took the low hanging fruit, the incentive to get the bigger deal would disappear I think the exact same argument applies with a UK-EU deal.

Martin added: No deal in a pure sense was never a possibility in relation to Brexit. No deal in terms of trade is a possibility because some things have to happen if theres not going to be mutually assured destruction.

But once these essentials happen, as I say, the motivation to carry on negotiating could diminish.

The UK government insists there will be no alignment with European trade regulations as part of a deal with Brussels, setting up a clash with the EU over its calls for a level playing field.

Martin predicted Brussels demands would be completely unacceptable to the UK, making a comprehensive trade deal impossible.

Manufacturing, which has already been in trouble in the UK, will continue to decline, will continue to have to compete with one arm tied behind its back if it doesnt have full and free access to its largest market, he said, adding that the downturn in investment since 2016 will begin to be felt over the next three years as British factory floors find themselves less efficient than European rivals.

As an MEP, Martin helped develop the EUs regional policy which saw billions of pounds invested in rapidly deindustrialised areas of Scotland, northern England and Wales. Consultation on a replacement for EU Structural Funds is more than a year overdue.

Within about six weeks of me being elected in 1984, West Lothian had real unemployment of almost 50 per cent because British Leyland left, Plessey left, Levi Jeans left, Polkemmet Colliery left, the mining jobs left, and the place was decimated.

The British governments basic attitude was, the market will take care of this and will regenerate it, Martin recalls.

It was the European Union that invested millions in the former coalfield areas, and regenerated those coalfield areas.

If you look around places that are very close to Edinburgh, like Newtongrange and Bonnyrigg and parts of Midlothian, villages could have literally died if it hadnt been for the investment that came from the European Union.

UK services will also struggle when competing for contracts in the EU if there isnt an agreement on free movement, because shifting staff to the continent will become more costly and difficult, Martin warned.

He said there was a risk to international cultural events like the Edinburgh festivals through increased immigration bureaucracy.

And with opposition parties sounding the alarm over the future of the Erasmus student exchange programme, and EU students facing the possibility of having to pay tuition fees in Scotland in future, Martin added: Im not sure how some of our universities can continue to thrive, actually. I think itd be a very serious blow to our universities.

With the next year set to be dominated by demands for a second Scottish independence referendum, Martin said the UK needs to change the way in which it respects the views of the nations if it is to survive.

My view has been for a while, leaving the EU is a fundamental change of circumstances and the once-in-a-generation argument does not apply in that situation, because we are in a different ballgame, he said.

Im still in the position where, because there are so many uncertainties, I have no idea what I would do in such a referendum. But the right to hold it and to have that national debate is now almost unquestionable.

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David Martin: No way back to the European Union in my lifetime - The Scotsman

By Pierre Tran

Paris The next few weeks will be critical for Libya as much depends on opposing sides of the civil war maintaining a fragile ceasefire and their foreign backers observing an arms embargo, Tarek Megerisi, policy fellow at the European Council for Foreign Relations, said in a panel debate on Libya held in Paris, France on January 22, 2020.

The ceasefire and embargo were two key measures in the 55-point communiqu issued at the Jan. 19 Berlin conference on Libya, he said at the debate, titled What Next for Libya After the Berlin Conference.

A split in Europe, the absence of the US, and direct intervention by Turkey and Syrian militia are among foreign elements which add complexity to armed strife in Libya, panel speakers said.

That civil war is effectively a proxywar, fought by foreign nations through the Libyan Government of National Accord and the rebel forces, said Leela Jacinto, journalist at television channel France 24 and moderator for the ECFR panel.

The recent deployment of Turkish troops and Syrian militia to back the national government was a game changer, she said.

The Berlin conference offered a slim chance for the ceasefire to be upheld and would call for the foreign backers to uphold their commitments to step back from the conflict. More than 2,000 people have been killed and 200,000 displaced.

Everybody is ready to resume fighting so unless this brief opening is seized quickly, well be back at square one in a couple of weeks, Megerisi said.

In Libya, there were low expectations for the Berlin conference, with a sense of helplessness as Libyans saw themselves as merely spectatorsat a football match, said Mary Fitzgerald, researcher and consultant.

At the high-level gathering in Berlin, backed by the UN and German chancellor Angela Merkel, the national government and rebel force agreed on those officers who would sit on a military committee (5+5 committee) for stabilization in the ceasefire.

Libyan and many international representatives signed up for that Berlin accord, the latest in a series of political efforts to stem the war racking the Arab nation since 2014.

In Tripoli, in western Libya, there is the UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) led by prime minister Fayez al-Sarraj, while in Benghazi in the east, there is Gen. Khalifa Haftar, head of the opposing Libyan National Army (LNA). There are also a number of militia forces active on the ground.

The long-standing conflict intensified some 10 months ago, when Haftar launched an air and ground attack on Tripoli in a bid to overthrow the GNA.

Just shortly before the Berlin conference, Haftar seized control of the nations oil facilities in the eastern region, effectively the economic life blood of Libya.

The US embassy in Libya formally called on the LNA to lift that oil blockade, the only international response to that action, with no joint European reaction, Fitzgerald said. It remained to be seen whether Washington would put pressure on Haftar to end that blockade.

A sense of the cynicism over the Berlin meeting grew out of the knowledge that the formal communiqu was drafted weeks before the conference while there were blatant violations of the arm embargo and fighting on the ground, she said.

Germany and the European Union account for some 75 percent of foreign aid to Libya, where oil exports generate $55 million in daily revenue, said Olivier Valle, researcher and consultant, and specialist in corruption.

The Libyan National Oil Company receives oil and gas revenues from both the eastern and western region, sends the funds to the central bank, which sends them to commercial banks, he said. That meant an equal distribution of wealth between the national government and LNA rebel force.

The Berlin accord included redistribution of resources and reunification of economic institutions, a positive element and first time the call was made in clear terms, he said.

In the European Union, there are differing views, with one side calling for Europe to act as honest broker or mediator, while the other side prefers to wait and seeor pursue national interests, Megerisi said. That split is not limited to France and Italy, with the latter making effort to build bridges with the former, he added.

Paris supports Haftar in the east, with the militia led by the Libyan general acting as a buffer to Islamic State irregular fighters entering from neighboring Chad, crossing Libya to enter Niger, an allied nation in the French Barkhane military mission in sub-Saharan Africa.

Meanwhile, Rome backs al-Sarraj and the national government as there is a oil pipeline and large Italian investment in western Libya. Italy also looks to Tripoli to crack down on people smuggling across the Mediterranean to land on Italian soil.

That conference could only be held in Berlin as Merkel was seen as neutral, while Paris is seen as backing Haftar, Valle said.

France and Germany are divided on Turkeys desire to join the European Union, with Paris blocking Ankaras application for membership, he said. That French rejection is a critical factor in Turkeys entry into Libya, which also recalls the days of its occupancy under the Ottoman empire.

The tighter links between Tripoli and Turkey reflect a perceived lack of support from the EU and led to the Libyan national government signing a memorandum of understanding with Ankara for gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.

That deal with Turkey has startled nations in an EastMed coalition which includes Cyprus, France, Greece and Italy, which are working with Egypt and Israel.

Haftar has close links with the U.S., as he has worked with the CIA, which sheltered him and helped him train 600 fighters in Egypt, Valle said. Before taking action, Haftar communicates to the U.S. either through Egypt or directly with president Donald Trump, he added. Haftar organized the coup dtat against then Libya leaderMoammarKadaffi.

The U.S. position is completely unclear, said Megerisi. There is no interest as president Donald Trump does not want to enter a quagmire.

But the U.S. is a superpower and if Washington made its position clear, that allowed the other actors to adapt to it.

France has long had a presence on the ground in Libya, mostly undisclosed. A helicopter shot down in 2016 killed three special forces troops, a deadly incident acknowledged by then president Franois Hollande.

Last April, Tunisian authorities caught 13 armed French nationals crossing the common border with Libya, with Radio France International reporting those were French intelligence officers.

The afternoon daily Le Monde ran a Jan. 21 2017 editorial pointing up how the private office of the then defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, had excluded its defense reporter from briefings of the defense ministry.

That exclusion was in response to a Feb. 25, 2016 article from the reporter disclosing French special forces and agents of the DGSE secret intelligence service conducting clandestine operations in Libya against the Islamic State, the editorial said.

The Le Monde article apparently particularly annoyed Le Drian as the reporter revealed that Parisinitiated a Nov. 13 2015 US air strike which killed Abu Nabil, an IS leader in Libya, weekly magazine lObs reported.

Besides support from Egypt, France, Russia and Saudi Arabia, the LNA relies on mercenaries from Sudan, Chad and Russia, while the United Arab Emirates is the most robust backer of Hafta, having broken the arms embargo in the past and given air support, Fitzgerald said.

Last April, the UN special representative to Libya, Ghassan Salam, said keep your hands out of Libya, Jacinto said.

The Berlin conference documents highlighted a desire to see some changes.

We call on all parties concerned to redouble their efforts for a sustained suspension of hostilities, de-escalation and a permanent ceasefire.

We commit to unequivocally and fully respect and implement the arms embargo established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970 (2011) and the Councils subsequent Resolutions, including the proliferation of arms from Libya, and call on all international actors to do the same.

There wasneed to follow up on the Berlin conference, otherwise Europe would be a bystander as Russia and Turkey move in,Megerisi said.

European states needed to ensure the arms embargo was observed and put pressure on the militia groups, with tools such as EU sanctions, travel bans, and bilateral pressure.

Libya is the pre-eminent case for Europe to play a more active role, he said.

The alternative was marginalization of Europe.

The featured photo shows French President Emmanuel Macron and General Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), attendingd a press conference after talks about easing tensions in Libya, in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, near Paris, on 25 July 2017 (AFP)

The featured photo is from the following source:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/libya-conflict-france-honest-broker

Also, see the following:

Chancellor Merkels Financial Times Interview: Shaping a Way Ahead for Germany

And the following:

The Libyan Conference in Berlin

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Europe and the Libyan Crisis: Geopolitics of a European Union or Traditional European Geopolitics? - Second Line of Defense

At an impromptu news conference from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, President Donald Trump threatened trade war with the European Union, fumed about teen activist Greta Thunberg, and offered a questionable analysis of impeachment proceedings. Trump also said he knew about injuries suffered by U.S. troops in Iran's January 8 airstrike, but announced that no Americans were harmed because he didn't think their injuries were serious.

The 11 injured service members showed signs of concussions and were, as of last week, being treated for potential traumatic brain injuries.

Trump told reporters this morning that at the time of his initial statements, he "heard they had headaches and a couple of other things." Asked whether he considered potential brain trauma serious, Trump said he did not hear about this part until several days ago but still did not consider these to be "serious injuries relative to other injuries I've seen."

On Davos itself, Trump touted all the world leaders he was meeting and all the deals he was supposedly making. Which translates roughly to "expect more tariffs."

The European Union is "frankly, more difficult to do business with than China," said Trump.

"I wanted to wait till I finished China. I didn't want to go with China and Europe at the same time," Trump told CNBC's Joe Kernen. "Now China's done, and I met with the new head of the European CommissionAnd had a great talk. But I said, look, if we don't get something, I'm going to have to take action, and the action will be a very high tariffs on their cars and other things that come into our country."

Much of the focus at this morning's press conference was on impeachment proceedings, which began against Trump in the Senate yesterday. (The president admitted he's been sneaking a peek at them when he can from Davos.) Congressional Democrats have no case because "we have all the material, they don't have the material," Trump said.

He repeated his assertion that his conversation with Ukraine's president was "perfect" and that the impeachment proceedings are "a hoax." Asked whether he still thinks climate change is a hoax, however, Trump said, "No, not at all."

(Perhaps he's just trying to boost his chances with Time magazineAsked about a Davos speech by ThunbergTime's 2019 person of the yearTrump first asked how old she was and then commented "she beat me out for Time.")

Trump also suggested that he still feels sorry for former President Bill Clinton over impeachment:

Watch the whole press conference here.

Impeachment to take longer. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (RKy.) announced revised rules for President Donald Trump's impeachment trial in the Senate, after everyone complained about his initial plan, which would have seen much of the proceedings going on in the middle of the night.

"Both parties will now have 24 hours each over the course of three days to present evidence, as opposed to the two days that were originally allotted," notes Reason's Billy Binion. And:

McConnell also altered a rule that would have blocked House evidence unless the Senate voted to admit it. Now all relevant documents will be automatically entered into the record and barred only if the Senate votes to exclude them.

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The European Union Is a Worse Business Ally Than China, Says Trump - Reason