Photographer: Paul Grover / WPA Pool / Getty Images
Photographer: Paul Grover / WPA Pool / Getty Images
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said major changes are coming in the UK as a result of the trade deal his government has negotiated with the European Union, completing the country’s separation from the bloc, the Telegraph. reported.
“We can’t suddenly decide we’re free and then decide how to exercise it,” Johnson told the Sunday Telegraph in his first interview since. the deal was reached on December 24. “This government has a very clear agenda to unite and level up and spread opportunities across the country.”
The agreement on the UK’s exit from the EU’s internal market and customs union allows tariff and quota-free trade in goods after December 31. It doesn’t apply to the services sector – about 80% of the UK economy – or financial services. The deal creates a new framework for businesses on both sides of the Channel, putting UK businesses facing more trade barriers than when Britain was a member of the EU, while liberating the UK Parliament from many of the restrictions imposed by EU membership. are imposed.
Now that it has been given more freedom to set independent regulations and financial and immigration policies, the UK would not “deviate because of differences,” he said. But would ‘do things differently where useful to the British people’.
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Johnson said his threats to walk away from the talks and allow the UK to crash out of the EU on Jan. 1 were genuine and not a negotiating tactic. The deal was reached because the EU’s negotiators knew the UK would act with “absolute conviction” and “get up and walk away,” he said.
British negotiators were able to “castrate” the EU’s efforts to bind the UK in order to set standards in the future. Those efforts by the EU have been “greatly watered down,” he said.
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The EU also runs little risk of the UK imposing tariffs on its goods in areas where UK regulations are stricter than those of the EU.
“We could do it … but it’s unlikely we will because we don’t really believe in rates,” he told the paper. “We believe in high standards. If the EU were to do such a thing, it would have to be proportionate and approved by the arbitrator. “