UK Finally Seals Exit From EU

Britain and the EU signed a post-Brexit trade deal on
Wednesday, sealing their drawn-out divorce in the closing hours
before the UK definitively ends its half-century European
experiment.

Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, the heads of the
European Commission and European Council, smiled at a brief
televised ceremony to put their names to the 1,246-page Trade and
Cooperation Agreement in Brussels.

“It has been a long road. It’s time now to put Brexit behind us.
Our future is made in Europe,” von der Leyen said.

The leather-bound document was then flown by the Royal Air Force
to London for Prime Minister Boris Johnson to add his signature, as
the UK parliament held a rushed debate to ratify the deal
in the dwindling time left.

Johnson gave a thumbs up after inking what he described as “the
beginning of what will be a wonderful relationship between
the UK and our friends and partners in the EU”.

Britain will leave the European single market and customs union
at 11:00 pm (2300 GMT) on Thursday, the end of a post-Brexit
transition period marked by tortuous trade negotiations which
culminated in the Christmas Eve deal.

Introducing an 85-page bill to implement the pact, Johnson
told the House of Commons that it heralded a new chapter for
Britain and the EU as “sovereign equals, joined by friendship,
commerce, history, interests and values”.

The lower house voted overwhelmingly by 521-73 to back the deal,
despite serious opposition misgivings, and the bill then passed the
House of Lords late Wednesday in an unusually rapid one-day
procedure.

London and Brussels would work “hand in glove whenever our
values and interests coincide, while fulfilling the sovereign wish
of the British people to live under their own sovereign laws made
by their own sovereign parliament”, Johnson added.

Anxious wait

Michel echoed the sentiment in Brussels, vowing the two sides
would work “shoulder to shoulder” on major issues, including
climate change and future health pandemics.

Johnson’s government only published the
accompanying UK legislation on Tuesday afternoon, less
than 24 hours before the debate began in parliament, underscoring
the frantic dash to clear the decks in time.

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The last-ditch deal averted the prospect of a cliff-edge
separation which would have seen quotas and tariffs slapped on all
cross-Channel trade, exacerbating strains in the middle of the
coronavirus pandemic, which has hit Britain harder than most.

But British fishermen have accused the government of selling
them out, while services — accounting for 80 percent of
the UK economy — were largely omitted.

The City of London financial hub faces an anxious wait to learn
on what basis it can continue dealing with Europe in the
future.

Theresa May, whose three-year Brexit-dominated premiership ended
in 2019 after she failed to win support for a closer future
relationship with the bloc, voiced unease.

“We have a deal in trade which benefits the EU, but not a deal
in services which would have benefited the UK,” she told
MPs.

‘Thin deal’

However, an influential faction of arch-Brexiteers in Johnson’s
ruling Conservatives gave their blessing to the EU agreement on
Tuesday, and the main opposition Labour party also gave its
reluctant backing.

“This is a thin deal, it’s got many flaws, but a thin deal is
better than no deal,” Labour leader Keir Starmer told MPs, accusing
other opposition parties of staging an irresponsible protest
vote.

Lawmakers from the pro-European Liberal Democrats and Scottish
National Party voted against — with the SNP using the issue to push
for a fresh referendum on independence for Scotland.

In Edinburgh, the SNP-dominated Scottish Parliament declined to
give its own consent to the Brexit deal, although First Minister
Nicola Sturgeon acknowledged that would not affect passage of
the UK bill.

The agreement’s impact will play out in the coming months,
with UK businesses braced for customs red tape they have
avoided for decades in cross-Channel trade.

Meanwhile from January 1, there will no longer be free movement
of people from Britain to the EU or vice versa.

Under the compressed legislative calendar, the European
Parliament will debate the Brexit deal after the New Year, but is
expected to eventually nod it through.

Pending that, EU member states gave their green light on Monday
for the accord to take provisional effect before the New Year’s Eve
deadline.

AFP

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