MANY WITHIN EU RELIEVED, MERKEL SAYS

However, Brexit is far from over. After Jan. 31, Britain will enter a transition period when it will negotiate a new relationship with the remaining 27 EU states.

The outcome of those talks will shape the future of its $3.6 trillion economy.

The transition period can run until the end of December 2022 under the current rules, but the Conservatives made an election promise not to extend it beyond the end of 2020.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said many within the EU were relieved that

Britain would now have a parliament with a clear majority, highlighting the frustration that European leaders have felt during three years of political logjam in London.

But she said it would be “very complicated” to complete the talks on a new relationship by December 2020.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned Britain that the more it chose to deregulate its economy after Brexit, the more it would lose access to the EU’S single market.

U.S. President Donald Trump congratulated Johnson

and said a U.S. trade deal could be more lucrative than any with the EU, the world’s biggest trading bloc. “Celebrate Boris!” Trump said on Twitter.

The Brexit issue has eroded traditional party loyalties in Britain.

Johnson said he was “humbled” at having won, a rare note of humility from a politician known for his bombastic rhetoric and supreme self-belief.

Voters unambiguously rejected Corbyn’s socialist program of nationalizations and state spending, delivering Labour’s worst result since 1935.

Corbyn announced he would step down after a “process of reflection.”

The election result was hailed as a victory for English, Scottish and Irish nationalism — but it raised fears about the future of the U.K.

The anti-brexit, pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP) won 48 of Scotland’s 59 seats by thrashing both the Conservatives and Labour.

Nicola Sturgeon, SNP leader and first minister of Scotland, said her semi-autonomous government in Edinburgh would next week publish a detailed case for a transfer of power from London that would allow her to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence. Scots voted in 2014 to stay in the U.K.

However, Johnson told Sturgeon by phone on Friday he opposed another referendum, prompting Sturgeon to say her political mandate must be respected, “just as he expects his mandate to be respected.”

In Northern Ireland, supporters of a united Ireland won more seats than those who want to remain part of the U.K. for the first time since the 1921 partition which divided the British north from the Irish Republic in the south.

Several hundred noisy protesters marched through central London on Friday evening to protest against the election result chanting “Boris Johnson: Not My Prime Minister” and “Boris, Boris, Boris: Out, Out, Out.”

CORBYN ANNOUNCED HE WOULD STEP DOWN AFTER A ‘PROCESS OF REFLECTION.’