Brexit. Why do Brits want Out of the EU?

It was worth fighting for this deal.

We now have a fair & balanced agreement with the UK. It will protect our EU interests, ensure fair competition & provide predictability for our fishing communities.

Europe is now moving on.

The omission of Erasmus from the UK-EU deal ends a scheme that had offered student exchanges as well as school links, work experience and apprenticeships across Europe since 1987. Under the latest version of the scheme, Erasmus+, around 200,000 people have taken part including around 15,000 British university students each year.

Adam Tickell, the vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex, said: “Leaving Erasmus is a real sadness, a scheme whose original foundations were laid at Sussex. Over the years the Erasmus programme transformed the lives of thousands of young people.”

In January, Johnson assured MPs there was “no threat to the Erasmus scheme”. But confirming the end of membership, he said on Thursday: “On Erasmus, it was a tough decision.” He claimed the UK “loses out” financially because of the larger number of EU nationals coming to study in the UK.

“So what we are doing is producing a UK scheme for students to go around the world,” the prime minister said. “It will be called the Turing scheme, named after Alan Turing, so students will have the opportunity not just to go to European universities but to go to the best universities in the world. Because we want our young people to experience the immense intellectual stimulation of Europe but also of the whole world.”

Vivienne Stern, the director of Universities UK International, said: “It’s hugely disappointing after all this that we are no longer in the scheme, but it’s not surprising – I understand that the European commission was not willing to budge on cost.”

Stern said she was pleased at the prospect of a new national plan to fund outward mobility, which she hoped would meet the costs of young people travelling overseas.

“As I understand it, there will be grants for young people not just in universities but broader than that, to support study and possibly working and volunteering. These experiences help graduates gain employment, especially for students from low-income backgrounds who are the least likely to be able to travel abroad otherwise,” Stern said.

Any Erasmus replacement needed to be “ambitious and fully funded”, she added. “It must also deliver significant opportunities for future students to go global, which the Erasmus programme has provided to date.”

The new scheme is not expected to fund students coming to the UK, as Erasmus does now, which suggests British universities will miss out on a source of income. A report earlier this year said ending Erasmus membership would cost the UK more than £200m a year.

Trade

• There will be no extra charges on goods (tariffs) or limits on the amount that can be traded (quotas) between the UK and the EU from 1 January

• However, there will be extra checks at borders, such as safety checks and customs declarations, so businesses that rely on transporting goods to and from the EU will need to be ready

• For services, including finance - which is very important to the UK economy - the situation is still slightly unclear. Services will lose their automatic right of access but the UK said the agreement "locks in market access across substantially all sectors"

• There will no longer be automatic recognition of professional qualifications such as doctors, nurses and architects


Travel

• UK nationals will need a visa for stays of longer than 90 days in the EU in a 180-day period

• There will be extra border checks for UK travellers

• EU pet passports will no longer be valid


Fishing

• The UK becomes an independent coastal state and can decide on access to its waters and fishing grounds

• But EU boats will be able to fish in UK waters for some years to come at least

• 25% of the value of their current catch will now become available for UK fishing boats

• But there will be a transition period of five-and-a-half years where that is phased in

• After the transition period the UK and EU will regularly negotiate on access to each other's waters


European Court of Justice

• The UK will no longer be bound by judgements made by the European Court of Justice, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said


Security

• The UK will no longer have automatic access to key databases, but should be able to gain access upon request

• The UK will will not be a member of Europol - the EU's law enforcement agency - but it will have a presence at its headquarters. This will be a similar to the arrangement the US currently has.


Study

• The UK will no longer participate in the Erasmus exchange programme - an EU scheme that helps students study in other countries.

• In its place will be a new scheme named after the mathematician Alan Turing

• Students at universities in Northern Ireland will continue to participate in Erasmus, as part of an arrangement with the Irish government.

State aid
The EU had insisted the UK align with its state aid rules. Brussels was concerned that the UK government would seek to find a competitive advantage through subsidies. The UK successfully killed off this idea. The UK will set up its own subsidy regime. The new domestic enforcement body can make decisions over whether state aid has distorted trade after the subsidy has been granted. This is a major concession by the EU.

However, the UK will have to ensure that its subsidy regime respects key principles set out in the treaty. The deal also allows both parties to adopt remedial measures if there is evidence that the domestic enforcement body has failed to uphold the shared principles.

Standards or level playing field
Both sides have agreed on a minimum level of environmental, social and labour standards below which neither must go.

Ursula von der Leyen said there would be a review after four years to ensure the level playing field was working.

One of the biggest sticking points in the talks was the EU’s insistence on an “evolution clause”, or “equivalence mechanism”, as Downing Street termed it.

This would have allowed the EU to unilaterally apply tariffs on UK goods in the event of standards diverging over time. If one side upgraded their rulebook, the other would have to follow, or face consequences.

In the end, compromise was reached. It bears a closer resemblance to the UK objective than that of Brussels. The British government had merely wanted a reflection point in the future where the two sides could discuss upgrading the basic minimum below which neither could go.

The deal provides for a review and “rebalancing” clause, which allows either side to initiate a formal review of the economic parts of the deal, including the minimum level of standards.

If either side drags their feet on agreeing a new floor for standards, the other may apply tariffs subject to the approval of an independent arbitration panel.

Rules of origin
This determines what goods count as “made in Britain”.

The UK persuaded Brussels that EU materials and processing should to be counted as British input when the completed products are exported into the European market.

A product would therefore only attract tariffs under the agreement if more than 40% of its pre-finished value was either not of British origin or from a non-EU country such as Japan.

The UK failed to secure diagonal accumulation, which would include parts from countries such as Japan and Turkey, with whom the UK and the EU have a trade agreement, to be counted as British input.

Dispute resolution
This was one of the most difficult areas of negotiation as it will set remedies for trade disputes for decades to come. Angela Merkel has said disagreement over an arbitration mechanism was the biggest obstacle to a deal.

The EU was concerned that the UK could, over time and depending on which government was in power, deviate so far from EU standards that it could carve out a significant competitive advantage and become a “Singapore on Thames”.

If either party feels trade is being distorted, it can take measures after consultation. An arbitrage panel would meet within 30 days and adjudicate. If the measures were later seen to have been deemed erroneous or excessive, the aggrieved party would be able to take compensatory measures.

It also appears there will be some kind of overarching UK-EU governance committee which will have subcommittees to implement and enforce the treaty.

Science
The UK will continue to participate in the EU’s flagship €80bn Horizon Europe programme as a paying associate member for seven years. It will also continue in Copernicus and Euratom.

TV Services
France successfully kept the audio visual sector out of the deal in a major blow to the UK, which is home to around 1,400 broadcasters, about 30% of all channels in the EU.

Britain’s thriving TV and video-on-demand service providers will no longer be able to offer pan European services to European viewers unless they relocate part of their business to an EU member state.

Transport
Aviation and haulage will continue as before with passenger and cargo planes still able to fly and land in the EU including stopover flights from Heathrow and elsewhere in the UK that originated from outside the UK. Hauliers will also be allowed to continue to drive without special permits allocated in limited numbers to countries outside the EU. This comes as a relief to the logistics industry which feared drivers being locked out in significant numbers.

The deal hinged on the UK remaining a member of the European Common Aviation Area.

However planes will continue to fly in a temporary deal, which will have to be renegotiated urgently.

Many key aspects of the UK’s future relationship with the EU are still up in the air, experts have warned, despite Downing Street hailing its Brexit deal as a “moment of national renewal”.

The 1,255-page document – published on Saturday – left numerous questions unanswered about professional qualifications, asylum rights, financial services and other issues, they said.

The text also contains no fewer than 244 references to “arbitration tribunals” and a further 170 to a “partnership council” – the bodies that will decide the details and settle future disputes, hinting at further negotiations.

Anton Spisak, a Brexit expert at the Tony Blair Institute, said 19 specialised committees and four working groups would hold at least 21 meetings each year, excluding aspects affecting Northern Ireland.

“I’m astonished how thin the deal is,” he said, adding: “This falls even below the standard of some recent EU FTAs [free trade agreements].”

Georgina Wright, associate at the Institute for Government, said: “There is still a lot of information that’s a little bit vague. The text is so legally dense and businesses want to know practical measures.”

She said the UK could now “diverge when it wants”, but warned of counter-measures, adding: “That comes at a price. You see that throughout the whole of the agreement.”

Among the issues not nailed down by the agreement sealed on Christmas Eve are:

* Financial services – with future rules “still to be established”, a government source admitted, despite the sector employing more than 1 million people, paying more than £75bn in tax.

* Professional qualifications in services jobs – with nothing agreed on their recognition in the EU, despite the UK enjoying a huge surplus in such exports.

* No agreement to allow the government to return asylum seekers to EU countries with the expiry of the Dublin Regulation – despite Priti Patel’s vow that it would be easier after Brexit.

* No data sharing deal for the UK chemicals industry – landing it with a £1bn bill to build its own database of approved products – with the level of cooperation with the EU undecided.

* The food industry protested at the absence of an “equivalence” agreement – which left New Zealand with a closer deal, requiring fewer checks and less paperwork.

And David Allen Green, a lawyer and leading Brexit commentator, pointed to “dozens and dozens of UK-EU talking shops”, saying: “Welcome to the future, negotiations without end.”