The British Parliament passes a law requiring the UK government to ask for a postponement of Brexit if there is no deal with the EU by 19 October 2019. The UK left the EU on 31 January 2020 at midnight (23:00 GMT). A transitional period is now in effect until 31 December 2020. During this period, all EU laws and regulations continue to apply in the UK. For businesses and the public, virtually nothing will change. This will give everyone more time to prepare for the new agreements that the EU and the UK intend to conclude after 31 December 2020. The new relationship between the EU and the UK begins, provided an agreement has been reached, approved by the EU Member States, the European Parliament and the British Parliament. The other 27 EU member states are ready to authorise the Report in the UK (the UK is due to leave the EU on 29 March 2019). If the UK Parliament approves the withdrawal agreement by 29 March, Brexit will be delayed until 22 May to allow time to pass the necessary legislation. If the British Parliament does not approve the deal by then, Brexit will be delayed until 12 April. In addition to the embarrassment itself, Iain Duncan Smith, who, although he recently admitted that no one had ever understood what they had said in the withdrawal agreement, insisted that the agreement was perfectly clear and that it was time for the EU to start negotiations in good faith.
Fortunately for IDS, before someone had time to choose the bones of his last piece of self-inflicted idiocy, Gove received the news of the bomb saying that everything he had said so far was entirely doggybollox and that the EU was now ready to negotiate the legal texts. It was as if Mikey had spent the first 30 minutes with Julius Caesar and had spent time at The Comedy of Errors during the break. The UK has taken a step back from the more egregious and obvious elements of the EU`s defensive integration, particularly with regard to unit integration. These texts are problematic in this regard, as they still provide, in the long term, room for manoeuvre for forms of membership in the United Kingdom that will have a negative impact on relations with NATO and with the United States. As a result, the interim agreement includes additional baggage, as it assumes that the UK will not undertake, for an immediate period of time, a significant EU operation justifying the role of operational leader. Therefore, an expanded transitional agreement offers the particular – and obviously avoidable – perspective that the UK will provide a large part of the troops or assets without being able to make a commander or a sufficient contribution to the intervention policy. After the adoption by the British House of Lords on 22 January of the European Union Withdrawal Agreement Act, the bill received royal approval from the Queen. The European Parliament approved the agreement on 29 January. Today, many Eurosceptics could buy into this agreement if, despite the flaws, it is assumed that the land case is close.
But that is based on the assumption that a transitional agreement does what it says on the label – it goes through that. The transition period is not extended. The United Kingdom has stated that it does not want an extension.