I have never been more confident in our ability to thrive outside the EU

With one year to go until we leave the European Union, the progress we have achieved in the negotiations so far should give us confidence in our direction. Last week Michel Barnier and I completed talks on some of the most important issues relating to our exit, publishing a 129-page draft Withdrawal Agreement.

The document represents months’ worth of discussions that will underpin the terms of how the UK leaves the European Union, and the start of a new partnership between us.

But more than that, it is another step towards delivering the result of the referendum, and achieving Britain’s departure from the European Union.

Negotiating such a seismic change was never going to be easy, and so that has proved. But the fact that three-quarters of the text is now locked down and agreed shows how far the UK and the EU have come.

We can now start looking to the future, beyond March 2019, to a strong partnership built on a shared desire to look after the interests of our people, our businesses and our continent.

Our first priority is our people. So I am particularly pleased an agreement has been reached on all of the text which relates to citizens’ rights.

The legal text has been marked green – good to go – and this translates, in real life, to a commitment that enables the one million Brits living in the EU and three million EU citizens in the UK to carry on living as they do now, safe in the knowledge that their rights are secured.

Critically, on Friday we also saw the EU Council agree to the Commission’s recommendation on the implementation period.

This is a hugely significant step. Businesses now have the certainty they asked for about life immediately after Brexit, knowing that they can trade on the same terms as they do today until the end of December 2020.

Not everything is staying the same during this period, though. We can start seizing one of Brexit’s biggest prizes – negotiating, signing and ratifying our own trade deals.

For the first time in 40 years we’ll have an independent trading policy, able to agree deals with old friends and new allies around the globe.

We also negotiated that the scores of international agreements we are signed up to as members of the EU should continue to apply during the implementation period. Because as well as providing continuity to businesses, the implementation period is also a springboard to prepare the UK for life outside the EU.

Leaving the EU isn’t about shortterm gains – it’s about the long-haul and the opportunities that come from taking back control of our laws, money and borders.

With one year still left to go and the future partnership with the EU firmly in our sights, there is of course more work to do. We need to keep working hard to turning the commitments made in the Joint Agreement in December into legal text, including on Northern Ireland.

That means agreeing workable solutions to avoiding a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, while protecting the integrity of the United Kingdom.

We will also need to start talking about our future trading partnership with the EU, ensuring that both our interests are protected with minimal new restrictions to trade in goods and services.

Of course our new trading agreement will be bespoke, and go beyond any other trade agreement the EU has signed before. But so has every trade deal the EU has previously signed.

The Prime Minister set out our vision for the future relationship in her Mansion House speech and my message to our negotiating partners is clear: let’s get on with it.

Because with a year to go until we leave the EU, I am more confident in Britain’s ability to thrive than ever before.

‘Leaving the EU isn’t about short-term gain – it’s about taking back control of our laws, money and borders’

David Davis is the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union