U.K. grapples with lockdown fatigue, Brexit transition

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• Michael Hill:

  For more on the UK's response to COVID-19 and to their Brexit transition, which is now just a month away, I spoke with Frank Langfitt, NPR correspondent and author of "The Shanghai Free Taxi."

  Frank, thank you so much for joining us. Boris Johnson is lifting England's second lockdown this week on Wednesday. Will this be a tiered system? How is this going to play out?

• Frank Langfitt:

  Yeah, it's going to be a tiered system, Michael. And what we'll see is the second and third tier, which are 'high' and 'very high,' which what is the vast majority of England will be in, there'll be some differences. So where I am just outside of London will be in Tier 2. So our corner pubs will start to open, but they'll have to close at 11 o'clock. People still will not be able to mix different households, mix inside. And then I think the big difference we'll see when you get up into Tier 3 is really shutting down restaurants and pubs only for takeaway and delivery, that sort of thing. Those are, those are some of the big differences.

  But what you're seeing already is complaints among members of parliament who say, wait a second, these tiers are blanket in some areas, where you'll take one county like Kent and say, even though it varies a great deal in terms of the COVID rate, make it all Tier 3 where you can just drive to the next county five minutes away and you can go have a drink at a pub. So they argue it doesn't make sense and that it's damaging economies here.

• Michael Hill:

  Frank, we've seen anti-lockdown protests kind of throughout Europe, in France and certainly there in England. Will they continue?

• Frank Langfitt:

  I think they probably will. You know, we had a lot of arrests yesterday. People were actually marching through the West End of London. That's the theater district. And it was a mix of people.

  I've covered these all fall, really. Some of it is anti-vaxxers. Some of it is COVID conspiracy theorists. Some of these are Q-Anon people. Even with President Trump on the way out, Q-Anon still resonates here in the United Kingdom.

  And there's a feeling from people's perspective, the people that come out for these rallies that, at a minimum, COVID has been grossly exaggerated, is doing a lot of damage to the economy. And they do believe, some of them believe that there's a global cabal that wants to actually depopulate the world, and that's why this is happening.

• Michael Hill:

  There's a lot of COVID-19 lockdown fatigue. We see it all over the place, certainly here in the States. Have people been complying there with the protocols to social distance, to stay inside and so forth?

• Frank Langfitt:

  Yeah, Michael, it's getting worse and worse. I think that, for instance, as I ride my bike around my town outside of London here, and other than the fact that the stores are shut, you can't really tell that we're in a lockdown. You would never think it was a lockdown. Boris Johnson, many months ago, his chief advisor violated a much stricter lockdown that we had that went in in March. And I think that really damaged the reputation of Boris Johnson, the government here, so that people pay less attention, frankly, to what he says.

• Michael Hill:

  Frank, we're a month away from Brexit taking effect. Where do things stand? Are people ready for this?

• Frank Langfitt:

  No, they're not ready for it at all. And I'm glad you asked that question. I mean, what's up in the air is, will the United Kingdom leave with some kind of thin deal with the European Union or will they walk away with nothing? But I think the fact that it has taken so long, Michael, it's again coming down to a last-minute, last-minute decision. It's pretty shocking, given that this is the biggest thing. This is going to change the course of modern British history. And yet it feels like they still haven't entirely taken it seriously or put kind of the great diligence into it that they should have.

• Michael Hill:

  What are the risks of a no-deal Brexit? Is that even possible after all this time?

• Frank Langfitt:

  If you'd asked me six months ago, I'm going to say, gee, they would have figured something out. I think what will happen is if there's a no-deal Brexit, you will see customs and tariffs and border posts going up between the United Kingdom and the European Union. You could see giant, what they call, 'tailbacks' here. We call it 'backup's' in America, of thousands of trucks at the border post at Dover to get on the ferry, to get through the Chunnel. And it would do even more damage to the economy than we're already going through.

  And things are pretty bad here economically. I mean, most of the stores are shut down. And, you know, on December 2nd, we'll begin to loosen up. Things will get a little bit better. But its economy is in pretty bad shape right now.

• Michael Hill:

  Frank, to switch gears, we just came through a big election here in the States, as you know. Has the prime minister there, Boris Johnson, shown how he will work with President-elect Biden?

• Frank Langfitt:

  Oh, absolutely. I think what he's going to try to do is not focus on Brexit at all. He knows Joe Biden didn't like Brexit, was against it. And he's going to focus on things where he's actually relatively closely aligned with the President-elect Biden, things like climate change, those kinds of issues where he's actually much closer to Biden than he would have been to Trump. Trump, of course, favored Brexit and so he was somewhat valuable to Boris Johnson. But beyond that, Johnson has much more in common with Biden than he would have had with Trump when it comes to policy.

• Michael Hill:

  Frank Langfitt, NPR, talking to us from England. Thank you, Frank.

• Frank Langfitt:

  Happy to do it, Michael.