GET READY FOR BLAST OFF, BRITAIN!

■ UK gears up for business boom with Brexit deal done ■ PM urges all MPs to back him as it’s right thing to do

THE economy will bounce back in 2021 helped by the post- Brexit trade deal, experts said last night.

After a bleak year dominated by the coronavirus crisis, business leaders claimed the agreement with Brussels would serve as a springboard toward a ‘bright future’.

The pound and financial markets are tipped to rise and a leading accountancy firm forecast economic growth of 6.1 per cent in 2021. It said this would have been only 3.3 per cent without an accord. Another study predicted that UK output would be 23 per cent higher than that of France by 2035.

Downing Street sources said ministers had secured trade deals with as many as 50 countries, with Australia and the US the next targets. Boris Johnson

hailed the deal as right for the UK and the EU and the basis for a long-term partnership.

‘We have delivered on every one of our manifesto commitments – control of money, borders, laws, fish and all the rest,’ he told Tory MPs. ‘We must remember that what the public want us to do is focus above all on defeating Covid and rebuilding our economy and I am glad that at least one uncertainty is now out of the way.’

A leaked copy of the 1,200-page Christmas Eve deal suggests Britain won some key victories in securing the EU’s first zero-tariff trade deal and helping to protect £660billion of commerce. The European Court of Justice will have no role in overseeing the future relationship and freedom of movement will end between the UK and the EU.

The deal was nearly derailed at the last minute thanks to disagreements on the car industry and on fisheries. It was saved by one-to-one phone calls between Mr Johnson and the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

The UK won concessions enabling it to protect the automotive industry in the North East, and signed vital agreements ensuring a level of police and security cooperation after Brexit.

Mr Johnson made concessions on fishing – securing less of the catch than had been demanded. That prompted accusations of betrayal from some fishing leaders and:

■ Priti Patel pledged safer borders and a streamlined extradition system;

■ However the UK has agreed not to water down or scrap European human rights laws in return for an agreement on security;

■ Holidaymakers will be able to travel to the continent visa-free for up to 90 days and will retain health insurance;

■ UK drivers will not need to apply for international driving licence;

■ Forecasters at the CEBr said the UK would thrive and outperform the French economy thanks to the tech industry;

■ The logjam of lorry drivers stranded in Kent could be cleared by the end of today after more than 10,000 were tested for Covid;

■ Brussels unveiled a £4.5billion fund to help countries and sectors hit by the UK’s exit from the single market and customs union.

Last night momentum was building behind the deal, with MPs to be recalled from recess to pass it on December 30.

The Prime Minister was heading for certain victory with Sir Keir Starmer saying he would order Labour MPs to vote in favour.

The majority of Tory Brexiteers are likely to vote for the deal unless members of the pro-Brexit European research Group find flaws in the legal text. Even Nigel Farage, the leader of the Brexit Party, said he would vote in favour if he was an MP.

EU ambassadors provisionally agreed to implement the agreement from January 1, before meeting to rubber stamp it next week. Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, will now start a big push to get business ready for extra checks on the border from New Year’s Day.

In a Christmas message, Mr Johnson brandished the agreement document and claimed Britain had finally settled its relationship with EU. He said the UK would remain emotionally attached to its European neighbours, adding: ‘Tonight, on Christmas Eve, I have a small present for anyone who may be looking for something to read in that sleepy post-Christmas lunch moment, and here it is, tidings, glad tidings of great joy because this is a deal. A deal to give certainty to business, travellers, and all investors in our country from January 1. A deal with our friends and partners in the EU.’

Mrs von der Leyen described the agreement as ‘fair’ and ‘balanced’, saying it was now ‘time to turn the page and look to the future’.

Echoing the Beatles, she said the talks had been a ‘long and winding road’, adding that the UK remained a ‘trusted partner’.

It emerged last night that Britain came perilously close to No Deal as the year-long talks almost fell apart in the final days.

There were last-minute rows on fishing and on the future of the UK car industry which may have caused hundreds of jobs losses in the North East.

Brussels is said to have put forward a last-minute demand to be able to impose punitive tariffs across the entire economic partnership in the event that there was a dispute over fish – a demand fought off by the UK.

The string of calls between Mr Johnson and Mrs von der Leyen saved the situation with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier sidelined towards the end.

A Government source said: ‘It was real when we said there could be no deal. right until the final days it did look as if we could have left without a deal.

‘The Prime Minister was clear with Ursula von der Leyen he wouldn’t sign a deal that wasn’t in the best interests of the country. There were

points at the start of the week when this could have gone either way. In the end it came down to two issues: fish and car factories.’

The issue on cars was around the percentage of parts made outside the UK or the EU, which Brussels wanted to be subject to full tariffs.

That would have made car plants in the North East unviable because they bring in lots of components from Japan. The EU resisted giving the UK a transitional period to reduce car plants’ reliance on foreign parts. The UK asked for a situation where they could have 60 per cent of components from outside the EU, which would gradually come down over the years.

Brussels originally stood firm but in the end the EU agreed to the transitional period and to 60 per cent. On fish, the EU accepted that European access to UK waters would reduce, but originally wanted a transitional period of 14 years while Britain just wanted three. In the end the two sides compromised on an end date of 23 June 2026 – exactly a decade after the EU referendum.

The talks culminated soon after 2pm on Christmas Eve when the PM and the EU chief agreed the deal on a Zoom chat – prompting Mr Johnson’s Downing Street team to cheer in relief. Britain’s biggest business organisation, the CBI, praised the ‘courage’ of Boris Johnson and political leaders for a ‘landmark achievement’.

Tony Danker, its director general, said the trade agreement came as a ‘huge relief to British business’ at a time when firms are under pressure due to the pandemic.

‘The UK has a bright future outside the European Union and with a deal secured we can begin our new chapter on firmer ground,’ he said.

His words were echoed by Jonathan Geldart of the Institute of Directors. ‘For business leaders, this Christmas gift is better late than never,’ he said. ‘A deal can draw a line under what has been a tumultuous few years for companies. It provides a stable basis for the future relationship with our biggest market.’

Richard Torbett, chief executive of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, and Nathalie Moll, his EU counterpart, said the deal was ‘in the best interests of patients’.

Richard Buxton, a fund manager at leading City firm Jupiter Asset Management, said the compact reached by Mr Johnson and Mrs von der Leyen was ‘something UK share investors should celebrate’.

He added: ‘After a very trying year, it is perhaps the best Christmas present many could have hoped for.’

The full 2,000-page text of the document is expected to be officially published today to allow MPs to scrutinise the terms before the Commons vote next week.

The EU’s £4.5billion fund will help fishing communities and can be used by national authorities to put in place the border checks necessary under the new terms of trade that start on January 1.

NOW the dust is settling, it seems increasingly clear Boris Johnson’s long-awaited Brexit trade deal is a historic triumph.

He has parcelled up an unprecedented package that – on the face of it – has lashings to celebrate. And, to boot, delivered it in record time. So much for the high priests of Remain sneering it would be impossible!

Like a 19th-century imperialist power, the EU had treated the departing UK like a rebellious colony, demanding we came swiftly to heel. Instead, the Prime Minister nervelessly stuck to his guns.

Declaring Britain would sooner walk away from the negotiations than cross its red lines, he forced the bloc to climb down.

By this time next week we will, for the first time in nearly 50 years, be truly sovereign – a vaulting affirmation of our national courage, ambition and character.

If as sold, the deal fulfils the promises made in the referendum and two general elections. The country will – at long last! – take back control of its laws, money, borders and fishing waters.

Not only does the multi-billion-pound agreement avoid costly tariffs and quotas, it also covers areas such as services, aviation and law enforcement. Crucially, we escape Brussels’ regulatory orbit. Almost every vital box appears ticked.

It is, of course, still possible that there may be booby traps. Few have seen, let alone digested, the full document.

Some intolerable poison pill may have been buried in its commodious 500 pages.

And should we be alarmed about the fouryear break clause? Surely only a masochist would want to reopen this divisive and grisly chapter. For now, most pro-Brexit MPs back the momentous deal.

Even Nigel Farage, who shook the political kaleidoscope, is instinctively putting pragmatism before purity.

Labour, meanwhile, has plunged into civil war, torn between wooing Leave voters in the Red Wall and its metropolitan Remain supporters.

And what of the dreary old notion, tossed out by rabid Europhiles, that a declining Britain cannot survive without kowtowing to the statist bloc?

A report by an influential think-tank consigns this comprehensibly to the dustbin. Throwing off the EU’s shackles, it says, sets up the prospect of the UK becoming an economic tiger, turbocharging job-creating growth and investment.

Indeed, not only will we remain Europe’s second largest economy, we’ll accelerate away from rheumatic, strike-torn France.

Mr Johnson swept to power promising to ‘Get Brexit Done’. To the relief of millions, he has achieved that goal.

After four nightmarish years, this country can, we trust, look forward to the future with unalloyed optimism.