What’s ahead?

Looking ahead to the key dates and events over the next year

In exactly a year, the UK will have left the European Union. At things stand, this much is a cold, hard fact – but even now, very little else can be said for certain.

Under what conditions will the UK leave its 46-year partnership with the EU? Will 29 March, 2019 be a cause for celebration or despair? A lot depends on how things go over the 12 dramatic months to come – but equally, some things don’t.

Securing a post-brexit transition means some of the suspense has been taken out today’s date, a year hence. One of the most important decisions over the past year has been the government’s acceptance that this will be a “standstill transition”, where EU rules will effectively continue apply.

Businesses are no longer looking a mere 12 months ahead, wondering what their trading conditions will be. In many areas, the impacts of Brexit are already being felt – in sectors heavily dependent on EU labour, or in financial services, where steps are being taken to preserve European market access – but the UK economy has 21 months of breathing space.

The government’s first priority will be to make this breathing space count. That means securing, by the autumn, a “political agreement” on broad principles for future relationship between London and Brussels. At its heart will be the model for customs – whether it’s Downing Street’s preferred, “intellectually perfect” but unprecedented customs agreement, that keeps trade flowing but still allows the UK to strike trade deals around the world, or a patchwork of measures borrowed from the Canadaus and Norway-sweden borders. Whether the UK stays in vital EU agencies covering aviation, policing and medicines, expect to hear a more about data protection standards.

This won’t be a trade deal, but it should lay the foundations for one to be struck in what the ministers hope will be record time. It must be detailed enough to satisfy parliamentarians in Brussels and across the EU, who will have to ratify it in the six months leading up to 29 March, 2019 – but the UK government will want it to be vague enough to not put Theresa May’s fragile House of Commons majority at risk.

That’s where the drama starts. PRO-EU Conservatives have already threatened an amendment to the Trade Bill, forcing the UK to stay in the EU customs union. If they are willing to risk bringing down the government, they form part of a majority in favour of a softer Brexit.

Mrs May also faces another battle with her own side, ensuring that Brexiteers are satisfied with the exit terms. Enough MPS have threatened to vote against the final deal on the strength of the transition terms for fishing alone.

There will be further shocks to come for the likes of Jacob Rees-mogg. Downing Street knows it has to go into talks on the future relationship with a mix of humility and self-confidence, and more of the former than has been seen to date. After a cabinet away day at Chequers to sign off the Prime Minister’s strategy, the buzzwords were “ambitious managed divergence” from EU rules. The noises are now more about accepting how limited any change after Brexit will be. Taking back control may only cover the laws, not what’s written in them.

Then there is the Labour Party, at war with itself over an issue that challenges its identity as much as Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. It has to decide whether voting against the final Brexit deal in the hope of triggering an election is worth the risk. Key figures are even open to the idea of a referendum on the final Brexit deal, which could become hard to resist if talks in Brussels go badly.

Finally, the small matter of Scotland’s constitutional future – and whether the prospect of a hard Brexit is enough to push Nicola Sturgeon into calling a second Scottish independence referendum.

All this in the space of 12 months. Some of the drama has been deferred – but some is priced in. It’s going to be a year like no other in modern history.