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Condition | Ratification by the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament, and the Parliament of the United Kingdom. |
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Between 2017 and 2019, representatives of the United Kingdom and the European Union negotiated the terms of Brexit. The UK's planned its withdrawal from membership of the EU. These negotiations arose following the decision of the Parliament of the United Kingdom to invoke Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union, following the UK's EU membership referendum on 23 June 2016.
The negotiating period began on 29 March 2017, when the United Kingdom served its withdrawal notice under Article 50. The withdrawal was then planned to occur on 29 March 2019, two years after the date of notification as specified by Article 50.
Negotiations formally opened on 19 June 2017 when David Davis, the UK's Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union met Michel Barnier the EU's Chief Negotiator.[2] They began to discuss a withdrawal agreement, including terms of a transitional period and an outline of the objectives for a future UK–EU relationship.
In March and April 2019, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Theresa May and the European Council agreed to move the date of the UK's departure to 31 October 2019.[3][4]
May resigned as leader of the ruling Conservative Party on 7 June 2019,[5] and on 23 July, Boris Johnson was elected as her successor.[6] The Johnson ministry and EU agreed to resume regular meetings to discuss the withdrawal agreement on 28 August 2019,[7] but the UK declared a pre-condition that the Irish backstop must be scrapped, which the EU said it wouldn't accept.[8][9]
In October 2019, following bilateral talks between Johnson and Leo Varadkar (his Irish counterpart),[10] the UK and EU agreed to a revised deal, which replaced the backstop. In the new Northern Ireland protocol, the whole of the UK comes out of the EU Customs Union as a single customs territory. Northern Ireland will be included in any future UK trade deals, but it remains an entry point into the EU Customs Union, creating a de facto customs border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Following the 2019 UK general election, which returned a Conservative majority, the Withdrawal Agreement Bill and its programme motion passed first reading in the House of Commons.
The agreement was ratified by the UK, on 23 January 2020,[11] and by the EU on 29 January 2020,[12] confirming that a withdrawal agreement was in place when, as planned, the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020.
The withdrawal was followed by trade negotiation between the UK and the EU, which resulted in the EU–UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), signed on 30 December 2020.