Upbeat after securing a landslide win, Prime Minister Boris Johnson stood outside 10, Downing Street on Friday with a message to ‘heal’ the United Kingdom divided by rancor since the 2016 referendum, but faces a tough task to meet Brexit deadlines in 2020.
Speaking after meeting Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace for permission to form the new government, Johnson sounded a conciliatory note on Brexit, assuring closure to a public weary of seemingly unending Brexit-related debates.
He said: “I will tell you that is what we are going to do we are going to unite and level up – unite and level up bringing together the whole of this incredible United Kingdom together; taking us forward unleashing the potential of the whole country delivering opportunity across the entire nation and since I know that after five weeks frankly of electioneering this country deserves a break from wrangling, a break from politics, and a permanent break from talking about Brexit”.
The first deadline Johnson faces is January 31 for the UK’s exit from the European Union – the third such deadline decided with Brussels, after the Theresa May government could not keep to the previous two deadlines earlier this year.
However, the January 31 deadline is largely symbolic, since the UK will continue to remain in the EU customs union and the single market until the end of 2020 – the agreed transition period. By December 31, 2020, a UK-EU trade deal and agreements on future ties are expected to be reached. Johnson has insisted he will not extension of the transition period.
{{/usCountry}}However, the January 31 deadline is largely symbolic, since the UK will continue to remain in the EU customs union and the single market until the end of 2020 – the agreed transition period. By December 31, 2020, a UK-EU trade deal and agreements on future ties are expected to be reached. Johnson has insisted he will not extension of the transition period.
{{/usCountry}}Equipped with a comfortable majority, Johnson may be able to ignore hard-Brexiteers in his party, such as the European Research Group (ERG), but at the core of future Brexit talks is the UK’s regulatory harmonisation with the EU.
The key variable is this: will the new Johnson government agree to such harmonisation in exchange for an ambitious trade deal with the EU, which is the UK’s largest export market – and what would that mean for the promise of ‘taking back control’ from Brussels.
Johnson insists the 11 months of the transition period in 2020 gives ‘ample’ time to negotiate the trade deal, but as evident from the history of trade deals – including the yet to be concluded EU-India deal – it takes years of tortuous talks to reach such agreements.
Academic Anand Menon, one of the leading independent analysts of the complex Brexit process, wrote in The Guardian: “We simply do not know what kind of Brexit Boris Johnson wants. Listen carefully, and you’ll hear two distinct narratives”.
“On the one hand, pro-soft Brexit Tories whisper that the kind of substantial majority the prime minister has will allow him to unleash his inner one-nation Conservative. Freed from the grasp of the ERG, they say, he will be able to negotiate the soft Brexit he has always secretly wanted, limiting the economic impact of Brexit, and allowing him to achieve it with minimal pain”.
“On the other, those very ERGers see Johnson as their ticket to the loose relationship with the EU they hanker after. The promise not to extend transition, for them, is a guarantee of either a bare bones trade deal or an exit on WTO terms”.
“The stakes, in other words, could hardly be higher. It is conceivable that the government will be able to persuade people that Brexit was ‘done’ in January. But there will be no hiding from the economic repercussions”.