Britain has taken a pivotal step toward leaving the European Union as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's Withdrawal Agreement Bill passed second reading on Friday by 358 votes to 234 in the House of Commons.

Boris Johnson's Brexit deal is now on the right track to complete its passage through both houses of parliament in time to break Brexit impasse by the end of January 2020. 

Pro-Brexit campaigners hold placards near the Houses of Parliament on Friday in London, the UK. Photo: Sun Wei/GT

Tired British voters wanted to end the "Brexit" chaos that began three years ago, but the real tests at home and abroad still loom.

New political landscape 

The landslide victory in general election on December 12 gave the Conservative Party's Commons the largest majority with 365 seats since Margaret Thatcher won a third term in 1987.

Boris Johnson promised to "get Brexit done on time by the 31st of January, no ifs, no buts, no maybes," he said right after his victory, which eliminates one of the main hurdles faced by him, and his predecessor Theresa May in the past. Johnson's large majority means he will only need to rely on the support of Tory MPs to pass any Brexit legislation with ease.

The election is very unusual, because it is more like a "Brexit" election where traditional party loyalty has given place to differences between "Remain" and "Leave." 

Patrick Dunleavy, professor of Political Science and Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), told the Global Times that the Conservatives won because they had appealing political policies, a popular leader, and well-organized campaigns. 

Tony Travers, director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the LSE, said Johnson's deal is not that dramatically different from May's. "Essentially it's the same pill, different doctors. People like the doctor, and they don't care what they're being given is the same."

Now voters have put Britain on a new path, giving the Conservative Party leadership political power, but the results of this election might not bridge the deep divisions caused by Brexit.

Sarah B Hobolt, professor of European politics at LSE, told the Global Times that Brexit has become a focal point in a mobilization of divides in British politics. "If you look at the groups that map onto these, we have both a generational gap between young people who tend to be 'remain' and old people who are for 'leave,' socioeconomic gap by education, and also the geographical gap which is about towns and rural areas versus big metropolitan cities. These divides in British society will not go away after Brexit."  

What's more, the success of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in Scotland, and Nationalists and Republicans in Northern Ireland, is likely to put the issues of Scottish independence, which was briefly settled in 2014, and Irish unity near the top of the domestic agenda.

The SNP claims they have also secured a new mandate for Scottish Independence, as the only other party to make a net gain in the 2019 elections.

Post-Brexit relationships 

Brexit at midnight on January 31, 2020 will be followed by an 11-month transition period, which will last until December 31, 2020. During this period, the UK will have to renegotiate its trade and economic relationship with its largest trading partner, while all EU rules and regulations will continue to apply to London.

The economic outlook of Britain depends critically on the nature of its future trading relationship with the EU, according to a recent report by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research. Brexit-related uncertainties are unlikely to lift any time soon as various forms of Brexit are still on the table. 

The report said business investment is estimated to be around 15 percent lower after the 2016 Brexit vote due to uncertainties.

However, it is not only the future EU relationship that Boris Johnson's new government has to renegotiate, it also needs plans to reset trade relations with almost all other countries as a result of Brexit. 

Among all the other relationships, Britain cannot avoid dealing with the world's two leading economies, the United States and China. How to balance the two relations in the context of the ongoing tariff tensions is a big challenge for Johnson's new year agenda as well. 

Tony Travers told the Global Times, "I don't think the UK has much scope to get involved in much of a trade war with anybody, really because it needs good trading relations with America and China and the EU." 

Travers pointed out that Britain is a smaller country that can't dictate the terms of trade relations in a way that the US or China or EU can. So it will leave the UK having to feel its way toward a new trading relationship with China and with the US and with the EU, and know they all have different standards and rules. "It's going to be quite difficult for the UK to get that right."

What is certainly true is that the UK has reasonably good relations with the United States. 

In terms of the UK-China relationship, Travers said when Boris Johnson was mayor of London, he was off to China on trade missions. His friends, then Chancellor George Osborne and Prime Minister David Cameron were in favor of that relationship. The renminbi is traded in the City of London at scale, and a lot of Chinese investors see London and the UK as a good place to invest in the long term. 

Against that backdrop, "I think that the relationship between the UK and China ought to be reasonably good," Travers added. 


Newspaper headline: It’s Brexitmas