Photographer: Paul Grover / WPA Pool / Getty Images
Photographer: Paul Grover / WPA Pool / Getty Images
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that major changes are coming in the UK as a result of the trade agreement that his government negotiated with the European Union, completing the separation of the country from the bloc, the Telegraph reported.
“We cannot suddenly decide that we are free and then not decide how to exercise it,” Johnson told the Sunday Telegraph in his first interview since the agreement was closed on 24 December. “This government has a very clear agenda to unite and level and spread opportunities across the country.”
The agreement on the UK’s exit from the EU’s single market and customs union will allow trade in goods free of tariffs and quotas after 31 December. It does not apply to the service industry – about 80% of the UK economy – or financial services. The agreement establishes a new structure for companies on both sides of the English Channel that leaves UK companies facing more barriers to trade than when Britain was a member of the EU, while releasing the British Parliament from many of the restrictions imposed by EU membership.
Now that it has gained more freedom to independently define regulations and immigration and financial policy, the UK would not “diverge just because of divergence,” he said. But it would “do things differently where it is useful for the British people”.
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Johnson said his threats to move away from the negotiations and allow the UK to leave the EU on Jan. 1 were genuine and not a negotiating tactic. The deal was reached because EU negotiators knew that the UK would act with “absolute conviction” and “would stand up and leave,” he said.
UK negotiators have managed to “neutralize” the EU’s efforts to compel the UK to act in synch in terms of setting standards in the future. These EU efforts have been “greatly diluted,” he said.
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The EU also faces little risk that the United Kingdom will impose tariffs on its products in areas where UK regulations are stricter than those of the EU.
“We could do that … but we are unlikely to do it because we don’t believe in tariffs,” he told the newspaper. “We believe in high standards. If the EU did something like this, it would have to be proportionate and approved by the referee. “