After three-and-a-half years, two elections and bitter infighting, the UK will divorce itself from Europe at midday NZ time today.
Brexit, the referendum that divided a nation, was finally passed into law in January this year and the streets of Britain will be filled today with some people celebrating and others commiserating.
The jubilant Brexit Party is holding a celebration outside Parliament in the UK to celebrate, while others are holding candlelight vigils to mourn what many see as a backwards step for the country.
British prime minister Boris Johnson, who was a vocal advocate for the Leave campaign and who was able to finally push Brexit through thanks to an election victory in December, will address the nation at around 11am NZ time.
Johnson plans to celebrate with English sparkling wine and a distinctly British array of canapes including Shropshire blue cheese and Yorkshire puddings with beef and horseradish.
A countdown clock will mark the end of an era.
Brexit was originally supposed to happen within a two-year timeframe of the original referendum in June 2016, but first Theresa May and then Boris Johnson were unable to get a deal over the line.
Johnson went to the polls in December on a firm mandate of get Brexit done and won a majority of 80 seats in the House of Commons.
This brought to an end more than three years of political argument, following the referendum, in which 52% of UK voters backed leaving the EU.
In Brussels, Britain's Union Jack was lowered at the EU council building and the bloc's circle of 12 stars on a blue background was removed from outside the British embassy.
The final parting of the EU's most reluctant member is an anticlimax of sorts, with little to change until the end of 2020.
By then, Johnson has promised to strike a broad free trade agreement with the EU, the world's biggest trading bloc.
Merkel warned the negotiations "certainly won't be easy", cautioning London that if it deviated from the EU's rules then its access to the EU's market would be limited.
Macron said Britain could not expect to be treated the same way as when it was part of the club.
"You can't be in and out," Macron told the French in a televised address.
"The British people chose to leave the European Union. It won't have the same obligations, so it will no longer have the same rights."
