Boris Johnson signed a landmark EU trade agreement on Wednesday with a promise that the UK would remain a close friend and ally of the European bloc even as it sought to take on a global role as an independent nation.
With an end of year deadline looming, parliament was recalled to consider the Christmas Eve deal in an emergency session. The lower house voted 521 to 73 in favour of the deal. "It's an excellent deal for this country but also for our friends and partners," Mr Johnson said.
Veteran Conservatives who had campaigned for decades as a minority in favour of leaving hailed the fulfilment of the 2016 referendum. One recalled being told in 1990 that the task of leaving the EU could not be done. Bill Cash, the eurosceptic MP, said Johnson had saved Britain's democracy from four decades of "subjugation" to Brussels: "Like Alexander the Great, Boris has cut the Gordian knot."
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel put pen to paper at an early morning ceremony in Brussels.
A special Queens Flight by the Royal Air Force then ferried the document from Brussels to London. "It has been a long road. It's time now to put Brexit behind us. Our future is made in Europe," Ms von der Leyen said.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson opened the proceedings on the bill in London knowing the outcome was secured by the votes of the opposition Labour Party as well as his own side. Theresa May, the former prime minister, spoke in support as well, though her backing was guarded.
“The central purpose of this bill is to accomplish something which the British people always knew in their hearts could be done, but which we were told was impossible – namely that we could trade and co-operate with our European neighbours on the closest terms of friendship and good will, while retaining sovereign control of our laws and our national destiny,” Mr Johnson said.
Keir Starmer, leader of the main opposition Labour Party, criticised a "thin and imperfect" deal but said said his party would support it to avoid crashing out without a trade accord.
“We have only one day before the end of the transition period, and it’s the only deal that we have,” Mr Starmer said. “Ultimately voting to implement this treaty is the only way to ensure we avoid no-deal.”
Former prime minister Theresa May, who resigned in July 2019 after failing to secure parliamentary backing for her Brexit plans, pointed out that Mr Starmer could have secured a better outcome under her negotiations. She was disappointed at the lack of provision for the services sector, which makes up 80% of Britain’s economy.
“We have a deal in trade which benefits the EU, but not one in services that would have benefited the UK,” she said.
Mr Johnson said the agreement was a signal achievement in the year of the pandemic. “This bill demonstrates how Britain can be at once European and sovereign and our negotiators accomplished their feat with astonishing speed," the prime minister added. “We have done this in less than a year, in the teeth of a pandemic, and we have pressed ahead with this task, resisting all calls for delay, precisely because creating certainty about our future provides the best chance of beating Covid and bouncing back even more strongly next year.
“We will now open a new chapter in our national story, striking free-trade deals around the world, adding to the agreements with 63 countries we have already achieved, and reasserting global Britain as a liberal, outward-looking force for good.
"We would never wish to rupture ourselves from fellow democracies beneath whose soil lie British war graves in tranquil cemeteries, often tended by local schoolchildren, testament to our shared struggle for freedom and everything we cherish in common.
“Now, with this bill, we shall be a friendly neighbour – the best friend and ally the EU could have."
