Britain and the European Union have finally reached a “Brexit” implementation deal

Eng­lish and Welsh vot­ers decid­ed over four years ago to with­draw the Unit­ed King­dom from the Euro­pean Union, over the objec­tions of their fel­low U.K. cit­i­zens in Scot­land, North­ern Ire­land, and Gibral­tar. But near­ly half a decade lat­er, Britain has yet to actu­al­ly leave the bloc. That’s set to change as of the end of this month, regard­less of whether the two sides agreed on the terms of a divorce.

Late­ly, it has looked like there sim­ply would­n’t be a prop­er­ly nego­ti­at­ed divorce arrange­ment, result­ing in a chaot­ic “no deal” Brex­it sce­nario. How­ev­er, the lead­ers of Europe and the Unit­ed King­dom announced today that they’ve reached an agree­ment on the terms of Britain’s with­draw­al, just in time for Christmas.

“I want to thank Pres­i­dent von der Leyen of the Euro­pean Com­mis­sion and our bril­liant nego­tia­tors led by Lord Frost and Michel Barnier, on the EU side Stephanie Rousseau as well as Oliv­er Lewis, Tim Bar­row, Lind­say Apple­by and many oth­ers. Their work will be avail­able for scruti­ny, fol­lowed by a par­lia­men­tary vote I hope on Decem­ber 30th,” said British Prime Min­is­ter Boris John­son.

“We have, final­ly, found an agree­ment,” said a relieved von der Leyen, who heads the Com­mis­sion. “It was a long and wind­ing road. But we have got a good deal to show for it. It is fair and bal­anced. And it is the right and respon­si­ble thing to do for both sides. The nego­ti­a­tions were very tough. But with so much at stake, for so many, this was a deal worth fight­ing for.”

Here are a few ear­ly takes on the deal:

“The Brex­it deal itself is noth­ing but thin gru­el. It will make it much hard­er for Britain to sell ser­vices to EU coun­tries, where we were once advan­taged. Britons will lose their right to freely trav­el, work and set­tle in oth­er Euro­pean coun­tries. While there will be no tar­iffs or restric­tions on the quan­ti­ty of goods that can be sold, British exports will for the first time in decades face checks on their ori­gins and com­pli­ance with EU regulations.”

— Tom Kibasi for The Guardian (At long last we have a Brex­it deal – and it’s as bad as you thought)

“The Euro­pean Union emerges from fraught nego­ti­a­tions with Britain over its exit from the bloc with a sense of sat­is­fac­tion — that it has main­tained its uni­ty and its core prin­ci­ples, espe­cial­ly the integri­ty of the sin­gle mar­ket of now four hun­dred and fifty mil­lion con­sumers that is the foun­da­tion of its influ­ence. And it is now look­ing ahead to its life with­out Britain.”

— Steven Erlanger for The New York Times (For the Euro­pean Union, It’s a Pret­ty Good Deal)

“In the com­ing days, with­out doubt, there will be a rhetor­i­cal bid­ding war over which side has giv­en more ground, ‘lost’ or ‘won’.
There will have been com­pro­mis­es on both sides. But both the UK and the EU have put prag­ma­tism over firm prin­ci­ple, and agreed an his­toric accord that will affect so many aspects of how we live.”

— Lau­ra Kuenss­berg for the BBC (John­son gets the deal both sides want­ed to achieve)

“Just days ago, as the Decem­ber 31st dead­line loomed, John­son laughed freely at the prospect of crash­ing out of Europe with­out any deal at all. It would be ‘more than sat­is­fac­to­ry,’ he said, promis­ing Britain would ‘pros­per might­i­ly’. But the UK is in its deep­est reces­sion since records began. And behind the scenes, the Prime Min­is­ter was issu­ing quite dif­fer­ent orders to his nego­tia­tors. Britain now bad­ly need­ed a deal.”

— Lin­ton Bess­er, Aus­tralian Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion (Boris John­son yields to real­i­ty, but Brex­it will come back to haunt Britain)

The text of the agree­ment has not yet been pub­lished. When it is, there will be an oppor­tu­ni­ty peo­ple every­where to engage in a deep­er analy­sis of its terms.