UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson Hails Brexit Deal
The Brexit deal is, finally, done.
BREAKING: U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson hails long-awaited Brexit deal: "I think this deal means a new stability and a new certainty in what has sometimes been a fractious and difficult relationship." https://t.co/QvpEvJiJLS pic.twitter.com/rBVKaUNruC
— ABC News (@ABC) December 24, 2020
London and Brussels have announced a Brexit trade deal, according to Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“The deal is done,” Johnson announced on Thursday, on Twitter. After months of negotiations, the European Union and the United Kingdom have agreed on a post-Brexit trade deal, as the United Kingdom is set to leave the European single market and customs unions on Jan. 1.
Four-and-a-half years after the referendum in favor of the country leaving the EU, the deal sets the terms of the U.K.’s future cooperation with the European Union.
In a press conference, president of the EU Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced that the United Kingdom and the European Union agreed on a post-Brexit trade deal, after a final round of negotiations overnight. “Europe is now moving on,” Von der Leyen tweeted, calling the deal “a fair and balanced agreement” that “protect our EU interests.”
The talks had stumbled on many obstacles over the last few weeks, including the thorny issue of fishing rights.
The Guardian put it best:
“A deal is welcome when the absence of one posed an imminent threat to national security and prosperity. The prime minister, with his “jumbo Canada style deal”, has played the system cynically. He has run down the clock and squandered diplomatic goodwill until the only viable option was a bad Brexit softened at the edges by the prospect of it being implemented in an orderly fashion. To have avoided the very worst-case scenario is a pitiful kind of achievement. Mr Johnson deserves no credit for dodging a calamity that loomed so close because he drove so eagerly towards it. This, too, is intrinsic to his modus operandi. His core skill is getting out of scrapes that his own negligence and recklessness get him into. On this occasion, he will fete the narrow escape as if it were cause for seasonal joy, in a typically bombastic and fraudulent manner. Relief is appropriate and welcome, but not gratitude – not to this prime minister.”Report
It’s not official until both Parliament and the EU Parliament approve it. Earlier this month, the EUP said that unless it were concluded by midnight this past Sunday, they wouldn’t vote on it until sometime after the first of the year.
Since no one will know exactly what the details of the “level playing field” are until the hundreds of pages in the agreement are finished, there may be some actual debate that needs to go on.
I’d be willing to place a small bet that the UK violates some aspect of the level playing field stipulations within two years and abrogates the whole thing.Report
At which time british citizens will be asked to vote on a referendum to a become permanent member of the EU. 🙂Report
Which would be a fun one, since the EU has at least indicated that if the UK were to do that, they would go through the same three-to-five year process that any new member would, and would have to ditch the pound.
Me, I want to see what happens in the Scottish general election in May. And how Northern Ireland feels after a couple of years of customs inspections on stuff coming across the Irish Sea.Report