On Jan. 31, 2020 at 11 p.m. London time – midnight at EU headquarters in Brussels — the U.K. officially left the bloc after almost five decades of membership that had brought free movement and free trade between Britain and 27 other European countries.

Five years after the UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020, the country is still adjusting to life outside the bloc. Brexit has strained small businesses more than big ones, changed university campuses and the NHS, and contributed to a three-way fracture in the British political firmament following a post-Brexit surge in legal migration.

Five years on from the day Britain formally left the EU, BBC Verify has examined five important ways Brexit has affected Britain. Economists and analysts generally assess the impact of leaving the EU single market and customs union on 1 Jan 2021 on the UK's goods trade as having been negative.