BREXIT DEAL GREETED BY SIGHS OF RELIEF

Agreement will add red tape to Britain, EU trade

After seemingly endless negotiations, Britain and the European Union announced they had struck a post-brexit trade and security deal, which will reshape relations between the two allies and antagonists for years to come.

Negotiators finalized the accord to complete Britain's separation from the bloc on Christmas Eve, just a week before the country leaves the EU'S single market and customs union. It brings an end to more than four years of tortured divorce proceedings, triggered by a referendum that transformed British politics and the country's connections to the rest of Europe. But there are still risks for U.K. businesses as the new rules come into effect in the days ahead, and the government faces a long-term battle to prove the painful separation was worth it.

The deal will allow hundreds of billions of dollars in goods to continue to flow — without tariffs or quotas but a lot more red tape — between Britain and the 27 remaining nations in the EU, the richest trading club on the planet.

“We've taken back control of our laws and our destiny,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at a Christmas Eve news conference. “We've taken back control of every jot and tittle of our regulation in a way that is complete and unfettered.”

Johnson said he hoped Europe, too, would be better off with “a prosperous, dynamic and contented U.K. on your doorstep.”

“This deal means a new stability and a new certainty in what has sometimes been a fractious and difficult relationship,” said the British prime minister, adding, “although we have left the EU, this country will remain culturally, emotionally, historically, strategically, geologically attached to Europe.”

Across the English Channel, there was more nostalgia than celebration.

“Today is a day of relief,” U negotiator Michel Barnier said at a news conference in Brussels. “But tinted by some sadness, as we compare what came before with what lies ahead.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: “It was a long and winding road. But we have got a good deal to show for it. It is fair, it is a balanced deal, and it is the right and responsible thing to do for both sides.”

The agreement, which runs more than 400 pages with an additional 800 pages of annexes, will be put to a vote in the U.K. parliament on Wednesday, and with the opposition Labour Party promising to back it, Johnson's accord is virtually certain to become law. EU government envoys in Brussels on Friday unanimously endorsed a statement notifying the European Parliament that the trade deal with the U.K. will go into effect on a provisional basis on Jan. 1, a spokesman for the German presidency of the bloc said in a tweet.

There was palpable relief from business leaders on both sides, who consider this agreement far better than the wreckage of “no deal” exit, something they have feared for years.

Even with the trade deal, though, the two sides will make a sharp split with little precedent in the modern global economy, with brandnew borders, inspection regimes and paperwork, where for decades there has been none.

Britain officially left the European Union at the end of January, but little has changed during an 11-month transition period. The real change is coming the night of Dec. 31.

The United Kingdom will leave the EU customs union and single market and be able to chart its own course. Johnson envisions a “Global Britain,” a free-trading sovereign nation, able to write its own regulations, control its own borders and make its own deals with the United States and other nations, without seeking consensus in Brussels.

U.K. businesses will still face border checks for which surveys have shown that they are unprepared, and consumers in Northern Ireland face the prospect of shortages of some goods as firms adjust to the new paperwork.

The deal also appeared to win approval from zealous Brexiteers outside Parliament, with Nigel Farage, leader of the now defunct Brexit Party, tweeting, “The deal is not perfect but it is a big moment ... There is no going back.”

French President Emmanuel Macron, who had taken a tough line in Brexit negotiations, said the agreement showed “European unity and firmness have paid off.”