The United Kingdom completed its split from the European Union on Thursday. Britain formally exited the EU’s single market and customs union as the transition period expired at 23:00 GMT, and began trading with the 27-member political and economic bloc under the new free trade agreement reached on Christmas Eve. The split comes 11 months after the UK formally left the EU on Jan. 31, 2020—three and a half years after the UK public voted to leave the EU in a 2016 referendum. “Britain has just become a fully independent country again—deciding our own affairs for ourselves,” said David Frost, the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator. “We have a great future before us. Now we can build a better country for us all,” he wrote on Twitter. In his New Year message, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UK is now “free to do things differently, and if necessary better, than our …