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After Boris Johnson urged them to end three years of parliamentary conflict and “discard the old labels of leave and remain”, the Commons passed the PM’s Brexit bill with a majority of 124, setting the UK on course to leave the EU on 31 January.

The EU immediately welcomed the vote as an “important step in the article 50 ratification process” but warned it would demand fair competition in exchange for a free-trade agreement with zero tariffs and zero quotas.

Stripped of several commitments since MPs last voted on it, including promises on workers’ and consumers’ rights, parliament’s role in scrutinising the future trade negotiations, and protecting child refugees, the legislation also made it unlawful for the government to extend trade talks beyond the end of 2020.

Johnson, who has also ruled out adhering to Brussels’ rules after the transition period ends, dodged accusations from the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, that he was planning a “harder Brexit than we anticipated” which would aim to undercut EU member states on food, health and product safety.

But as it emerged that London would co-host the next stage of the talks with Brussels after 31 January, the new European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the UK should reconsider its refusal to extend the 11-month transition period.

Von der Leyen said she had “serious concern” about the limited time available for the talks, which must cover far more than just a free trade deal (see below): “We must ask ourselves seriously if all these negotiations are feasible in such a short time.”

The commission vice-president, Frans Timmermans, promised a warm welcome back into the bloc should attitudes in Britain ever change, and in his new year message, Johnson pledged to represent remainers and work with them as “friends and equals”.

But the talks on the future relationship, which can only formally begin after 31 January when the UK leaves, are expected to be tough – as Von der Leyen and the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, are likely to make clear at a preliminary meeting with the prime minister in London this week.

What next?

The Brexit deal is expected to complete its progress through the Commons and Lords by the middle of the month, and be ratified by the European parliament by the end of January. Trade talks proper are expected to begin in late February or early March.

During the transition period, the UK will remain in the bloc’s customs union and single market until the end of 2020, with an option to stay within those arrangements for a further two years.

Johnson has said he will not agree to such an extension, claiming there is ample time to negotiate a comprehensive deal covering all aspects of the current EU-UK relationship, from trade to internal security, transport and data-sharing.

The moment of truth will arrive on 1 July, by which time both sides have to have agreed to prolong the transition period or face running out of time and ending up without a deal.

Should no trade deal have been reached, Britain would face major disruption to its economy, with tariffs and quantity restrictions being immediately applied to goods being sold into the EU market.

Early in the transition period the EU will also have to declare UK regulations “adequate” to ensure the free flow of data after Brexit, and to allow UK financial service providers to continue operating within the bloc.

Intellectual property, public procurement, fisheries and a level playing field on fiscal, environmental and social standards must also be addressed, as must dispute resolution, road and air transport, security, foreign policy, space, energy, citizens’ mobility, and future British involvement in EU programmes such as higher education.

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In the Guardian, Polly Toynbee predicts that Johnson will break his Brexit promises and warns that Labour must be forensic in exposing it:

Whatever Johnson does, he cannot keep all of his Brexit promises, as gigantic hurdles stand in his way. The most impassable are fisheries, agriculture, finance and Northern Ireland. No fixes and fudges will let him bluster through these. The UK sells 80% of its catch to the EU, and imports 70% of the fish it eats from the EU. There will be no deal without fish, so Johnson must decide – will he sell out the fishers to the vital interests of our pharma, finance or airline routes? The 80% of our economy devoted to services will get no deal, with a bare-bones, goods-only free trade agreement fixed in 11 months. Banks and finance will slip away quietly. The third gigantic boulder is still Northern Ireland. The border down the Irish Sea, with Northern Ireland in the customs union and the rest of the UK out, will never be accepted by unionists … Trade talks may take place “in secret”, but Johnson will have no hiding place – he will be obliged to break impossible promises. Forget the PM’s “golden age” balderdash: these Brexit pigeons will come home to roost, sooner not later. If Labour wants any role in the country’s future, it has to carve out a clear path on what kind of Brexit the UK needs. If complicit now, what can Labour say when Brexit wreaks economic havoc, emptying the Treasury of funds for spending on parched public services?

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The bigger picture intrudes, at the behest of the historian Helene von Bismarck: