#alternate alternate Britain and E.U. Reach Landmark Deal on Brexit (BUTTON) -- Today’s Paper Europe|Britain and E.U. Reach Landmark Deal on Brexit https://nyti.ms/3aF0pE1 * -- * Brexit * Britain and E.U. Reach Deal * 5 Things to Know * Post-Brexit Trade Deal * Already Out of Date? -- Continue reading the main story Britain and E.U. Reach Landmark Deal on Brexit The trade agreement comes after months of negotiations, and still -- transcript Britain and E.U. Reach Long-Awaited Brexit Trade Deal Britain and the European Union reached a landmark trade agreement on Brexit after 11 months of negotiations and just a week before a year-end deadline. -- Britain and the European Union reached a landmark trade agreement on Brexit after 11 months of negotiations and just a week before a year-end deadline.CreditCredit...Andrew Testa for The New York Times -- LONDON — Britain and the European Union struck a hard-fought trade agreement on Thursday, settling a bitter divorce that stretched over more than four years and setting the terms for a post-Brexit future as close neighbors living apart. -- costs for companies and causing potential delays at ports. But it is nonetheless a landmark in the long-running Brexit drama — the bookend to Britain’s departure from the European Union in January and a blueprint for how the two sides will coexist after severing deep ties -- long voyage.” Brexit began as a project to assert British sovereignty and throw off the constraints of Brussels. Fueled by anti-immigrant fervor and a belief that an independent Britain would fare better in a changing -- Image Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, right, won a landslide election victory in 2019 vowing to “get Brexit done.” Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, right, won a landslide election victory in 2019 vowing to “get Brexit done.”Credit...Henry Nicholls/Reuters -- put globalism on the defensive; and the victory of Joseph R. Biden Jr. in the American presidential election called the go-it-alone ethos of Brexit into question. To allow enough time to confront these issues, Britain agreed to -- For Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, who won a landslide election victory in 2019 vowing to “get Brexit done,” the deal allows him to fulfill that promise. He sounded triumphant when speaking shortly after the announcement. “We’ve taken back control of our laws -- demanding. The European Court of Justice, anathema to Brexiteers, will have no role. -- From the start, Mr. Johnson framed the negotiations as an opportunity to assert Britain’s sovereignty in a post-Brexit world. Inevitably, though, given the European Union’s much greater size and economic muscle, its negotiators were able to insist that Britain stay aligned -- the trade talks unfolded for the most part with less drama or visibility than the political debate that preceded them. That was partly deliberate. Mr. Johnson’s government wanted to push Brexit out of the spotlight in order to highlight an agenda of developing Britain’s industrial north. -- But external events also altered the negotiating dynamic. The pandemic ravaged Europe, preoccupying leaders and pushing Brexit off their radar screens until very late in the year. It also added to the pressure to conclude a deal, since neither side wanted to inflict -- In the United States, the victory of Joseph R. Biden Jr. over President Trump in last month’s election changed the calculation for Mr. Johnson. Mr. Trump, an enthusiastic proponent of Brexit, had promised that the United States would negotiate a lucrative trade deal with Britain after it left the European embrace. Mr. Biden, however, has said that he views Brexit as a mistake and has ruled out negotiating new trade agreements with any country until, he says, the United States improves its competitiveness at home. That has deprived Mr. Johnson of one of his primary selling points for concluding the Brexit process. Mr. Biden is also a staunch defender of Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement, the peace accord that settled decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland. A failed Brexit trade negotiation could have threatened that peace, since it would have raised the specter of a return to a hard border across the island of Ireland. -- But Mr. Cameron, who wanted to remain in the bloc, prevented officials from drawing up plans for what Brexit would actually look like. That unenviable task fell to Theresa May, who took over as prime minister when Mr. Cameron quit after the shock of the vote. -- While that would have helped businesses, which worried about the disruption of Brexit, it would have required continuing to obey many European rules — something that was anathema to hard-line Brexiteers. Opponents of Brexit were also unimpressed and pressed for a second referendum to overturn the result. -- Often, the two sides talked past each other. For Mr. Johnson and his band of Brexiteers, reasserting sovereignty, escaping Europe’s economic rule book and revitalizing Britain’s economy were the cardinal objectives. -- During the 2016 referendum campaign, Mr. Johnson promised fishing workers in Britain that Brexit would reclaim control over the country’s national waters, which have been shared with French and other European fishing crews for decades or, in some cases, centuries.