-Britain voted to leave the European Union in 2016.
And on December 24, 2020, Britain and the EU announced
that they had reached a post-Brexit trade
and security deal
which was just in time for the December 31st deadline.
-We have completed the biggest trade deal
yet worth £660 billion a year,
a comprehensive Canada-style free trade deal
between the UK and the EU.
-The European Union and the United Kingdom
will stand shoulder to shoulder to deliver
on our common global goals.
-For decades, British lawmakers argued that the European Union
was constraining Britain's economic and political future,
but since the Brexit vote,
the country has had mixed economic fortunes
and struggled through the pandemic year in 2020.
-From Thursday until the start of December,
you must stay at home.
You may only leave home for specific reasons.
-Some pro-Brexit voices argue that the short-term
economic pain was always likely, but that in time,
the country would reap the benefits of Brexit
and become the global Britain
that Johnson and his allies desired,
to be able to pursue independent foreign policy
and bilateral trade deals.
Before Britain could get to this
and plan its future relationship with the EU,
the two had to negotiate a withdrawal agreement,
which is basically a procedure for how it would leave the bloc.
Even that proved difficult.
Some argued that Britain could pursue
what's called a soft Brexit
and seek a close relationship like Norway,
which is an outsider that is essentially bound
by many EU rules.
But others including Boris Johnson's
ruling Conservative Party
wanted a clean break from the EU,
which is known as a hard Brexit.
-This kind of ratchet clause they've got in
to keep the UK locked in to whatever they want to do
in terms of legislation, which obviously doesn't work.
-To make matters harder, Britain's Supreme Court decided
in early 2017
that Parliament must have a say on any Brexit deal.
Multiple agreements reached by the former government
of Prime Minister Theresa May
with her European counterparts were voted down in Parliament
before she resigned in 2019.
Johnson was elected Prime Minister in July 2019,
and with a new election in December of that year,
he won a comfortable majority in Parliament.
This helped him get his withdrawal agreement
through in January 2020,
and it led to the long awaited Brexit Day.
On January 31, 2020, when Britain formally Brexited.
However, there were still many outstanding items.
Britain had not reached an agreement
on its future relationship with the European Union.
So after Brexit Day, Britain entered
into an 11-month transition period
to negotiate a trade deal
and set out its future relationship with the EU.
There were significant arguments over seemingly mundane things,
like fishing rights.
Johnson used harder negotiating tactics than May,
even this fall threatening to withdraw
from elements of the withdrawal agreement,
which would potentially be in violation of international law.
The deal reached on December 24th allows Britain
to potentially take back control of 2/3 of its stock
over the next five years.
And in regards to trade, the deal allows each side
to appeal to an independent review panel
and impose tariffs if they feel wronged.
Another debate surrounded the Irish border,
where seamless travel between Northern Ireland
and Ireland is permitted.
The absence of a deal if trading rules between
Northern Ireland were no longer aligned with those of Ireland,
which is an EU member state,
could have resulted in the need for a hard border.
This would be a potential breach of the Good Friday agreement
that some feared could lead to sectarian violence.
But businesses on both sides considered this deal better
than the wreckage of a no-deal exit,
something that was feared for years
and was previewed this week when countries shut their borders
to travelers from Britain
over fears of a coronavirus mutation,
and thousands of freight trucks were stuck at British ports.
Even with the trade deal, though, the two sides will make
a sharp split with little precedent
in the modern global economy,
with brand-new borders, inspections,
and red tape where for decades, there has been none.