Long-Awaited EU Deal Brings Britain One Step Closer To Finally Completing Brexit
Britain’s Parliament voted resoundingly on Wednesday to approve a trade deal with the European Union, paving the way for an orderly break with the bloc that will finally complete the U.K.’s long Brexit journey.
With just a day to spare, lawmakers in the House of Commons voted 521-73 in favor of the agreement sealed between the U.K. government and the EU last week.
Brexit enthusiasts in Parliament praised it as a reclamation of independence from the bloc.
Late Wednesday evening, Parliament’s upper chamber, the House of Lords, also backed the deal.
It will become British law within hours, once it has received the formality of royal assent from Queen Elizabeth II.
The U.K. left the EU almost a year ago, but remained economically within the bloc during a transition period that ends at midnight Brussels time — 11 p.m. in London — on Thursday.
The day before departure, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel signed the agreement during a brief ceremony in Brussels.
“The agreement that we signed today is the result of months of intense negotiations in which the European Union has displayed an unprecedented level of unity,” Michel said.
“It is a fair and balanced agreement that fully protects the fundamental interests of the European Union and creates stability and predictability for citizens and companies.”
The documents were then flown by Royal Air Force plane to London, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson added his signature.
The European Parliament also must sign off on the agreement, but is not expected to get to it for several weeks.
Johnson told legislators that the deal heralded “a new relationship between Britain and the EU as sovereign equals.”
It has been 4 1/2 years since Britain voted 52 percent to 48 percent to leave the bloc it had joined in 1973. Brexit started on Jan. 31 of this year.
Big changes are coming on New Year’s Day.
The agreement, hammered out after more than nine months of tense negotiations and sealed on Christmas Eve, will ensure Britain and the 27-nation EU can continue to trade without tariffs or quotas.
That should help protect the 660 billion pounds ($894 billion) in annual trade between the two sides.
Johnson said the Brexit deal would turn Britain from “a half-hearted, sometimes obstructive member of the EU” into “a friendly neighbor — the best friend and ally the EU could have.”
He said Britain would now “trade and cooperate with our European neighbors on the closest terms of friendship and goodwill, whilst retaining sovereign control of our laws and our national destiny.”
Some lawmakers grumbled about being given only five hours in Parliament to scrutinize the 1,200-page deal. But support among legislators was overwhelming, if not always enthusiastic.
Johnson’s Conservative Party, which fought for years for the seemingly long-shot goal of taking Britain out of the EU, gave its backing to the deal.
The strongly pro-EU Scottish National Party and Liberal Democrats and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party voted against it.
But the main opposition Labour Party, which had sought a closer relationship with the bloc, said it would vote for the agreement because it would be better than a chaotic no-deal rupture.
“We have only one day before the end of the transition period, and it’s the only deal that we have,” Labour leader Keir Starmer said. “It’s a basis to build on in the years to come.”
Former Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May, who resigned in 2019, said she would vote for Johnson’s agreement. But she said it was worse than the one she had negotiated with the bloc, which lawmakers repeatedly rejected.
She noted that the deal protected trade in goods but did not cover services, which account for 80 percent of Britain’s economy.
“We have a deal in trade, which benefits the EU, but not a deal in services, which would have benefited the U.K.,” May said.
The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.
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