British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced a "landmark agreement" with the EU, laying the foundation for close cooperation with the group.
Nearly nine years after the UK voted to leave the EU, new agreements include new security and defence agreements, fewer restrictions on UK food exporters and tourists, and a controversial new fishing agreement.
The UK said a reset with its largest trading partner would reduce the traditional Chinese tape festival for agricultural producers and make food cheaper. The deal will also improve energy security, with the economy increasing by nearly 9 billion pounds ($12.1 billion) by 2040.
The opposition Conservatives immediately attacked when Starmer sold the deal with a "win-win" deal, which the party said would make Britain a "rules entrepreneur" in Brussels.
Nigel Farage, the British right-wing and pro-Brexit Reform Party, called the deal a "despicable surrender."
As part of Monday’s defense and security agreement, the UK and the EU will work more closely on information sharing, maritime issues and cybersecurity.
Crucial to the UK, the group is committed to exploring ways Britain can acquire EU defense funding.
British arms manufacturers can now join the 150 billion euro ($169 billion) plan to reorganize Europe - U.S. President Donald Trump is working to spend more money on defense.
Meanwhile, both sides agreed to sign a joint farm agreement to remove trade barriers in the Brexit era, such as safety inspections of animals, paperwork and bans on certain products.
In 2023, the UK exports of food and beverages to the EU were worth £14 billion (US$18.7 billion), accounting for 57% of all overseas sales in the industry. Monday's agreement should make this point.
In exchange, the UK will need to follow EU food standards (a system known as "dynamic consistency") and accept supervision from the European Court of Justice in this area.
Negotiations have been made regarding linking the UK and EU carbon markets (i.e., the tradable price of carbon dioxide emission prices) to the combined power market.
The deal also paves the way for the UK to return to the Erasmus Student Exchange Program and allows young people to enter the EU through work and travel.
To attract tourists in a symbolic posture, the British will be allowed to use border electronics at most EU airports, thus reducing the queues of passport-controlled.
Finally, the UK will grant additional 12 years of EU fishermen entering British waters, the 11th hour concession in the UK, three times longer than originally offered.
Conservatives and critics of reform Britain quickly condemned the deal as a betrayal of Brexit, believing the trade deal was too expensive.
The fishery deal has sparked fierce opposition, which opposition politicians say means handing over British fishing water to European fishermen for a decade.
Although it only accounts for 0.04% of GDP, fishing is a key issue in the UK. The Starmer deal appears to have been tense for the last time during the Brexit negotiations.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote on X: “The 12-year-old British waters are three times longer than the government wants.
Farage, the reform leader, told Bloomberg that Starmer's deal with the fisheries "will be the end of the industry." The Scottish Fishermen Federation calls it a "horror show".
Elsewhere, there have been complaints that the UK must obey the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice regarding the policies of the agricultural court.
For them, the conservatives vowed to turn all these changes if they regain power.
Still, Starmer firmly insisted on his election commitment to not rejoin the European single market (commodities and people can act freely) or the tariff union (which eliminates tariffs on traded goods between EU countries).
According to the Office of Budget Responsibility for Independent Forecasters of the Ministry of Finance (OBR), the UK's decision to withdraw from the EU will narrow trade flows by 15%.
In the long run, the calculated Brexit will also reduce GDP by 4%. This amounts to an annual economic loss of £100 billion (US$13.4 billion).
First, Brexit involves the establishment of major trade barriers in Europe. In 2024, the UK's commodity exports to the EU are actually 18% lower than their 2019 level.
The decision to leave the EU also sparked business uncertainty. Business investment has been eased by lack of clarity on the future economic relations between the UK and the EU.
The National Institute of Economics and Social Research estimates that business investment in 2023 is 13% lower than the rest.
Brexit promises leaving the EU will allow Westminster to sign a global free trade agreement and leave the EU's strict regulatory regime.
"The argument is that doing business at home and abroad will be simplified," said Gaurav Ganguly, head of economic research at EMEA at Moody's Analytics.
“While the UK has signed several trade deals since 2020, Brexit has not unleashed the potential for talk (by its advocates).
In recent weeks, the UK has signed trade agreements with India and the United States. But between 2020 and 2024, the average GDP growth in the UK was only 0.64%.
Elsewhere, public support for Brexit has declined since 52-48% of holiday votes in the referendum in 2016.
Earlier this year, a poll conducted by Yougov found that only 30% of British people now believe that the UK voted to leave the EU is right, while 55% say it is wrong.
About 60% think Brexit is bad, including one-third of furlough voters. Most people also believe that leaving the EU has hurt the UK's economy.
Since last year's general election, the Labor government has pledged to increase the growth rate of anemia in the UK. It believes that the EU's trade barriers are relatively low and are crucial to this goal.
Starmer acknowledged the losses caused by Brexit to trade, saying the deal to lift restrictions on food would bring £204 billion ($12 billion) to the UK's economic growth by 2040.
Downing Street said in a government briefing that this will correct a 21% drop in exports since Brexit and a 7% drop in imports.
That is, the price of £9 billion (US$12 billion) is only 0.2% of the UK's national output. So this week's deal deal only removes a small percentage of trade barriers established after Brexit.
“The deal was likely to grow yesterday,” Gangali told Al Jazeera. “But the UK economy continues to struggle with structural weaknesses, including low productivity and limited fiscal space.”
The London-based think tank European Reform Centre recently calculated that the reset of the UK EU will increase UK GDP by 0.3% to 0.7%.
Ganguly said he was “not willing to change my forecast in the near term”, adding: “In addition, it is clear that yesterday’s deal will not completely reverse the economic blow to Brexit.”
The result is that ganguly A modest growth in GDP is expected to be around 1-2% from now until the next election cycle in 2029.