What does the new transition deal resolve and is it all pointless anyway? The Brexit Means team tries to figure it out

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A couple of days before EU leaders meet in Brussels for their next summit, the chief UK and EU Brexit negotiators, David Davis and Michel Barnier, appeared on stage together for the first time in several months to announce that agreement had been reached on a transition deal.

On one level, this was obviously a result. The Brexit process remains on track, businesses were reassured that they would not be falling off a regulatory cliff-edge into chaos in March 2019 when the UK leaves. But on another level, the transition agreement was anything but.



First, the transition won’t even happen unless Britain and the EU conclude the formal article 50 withdrawal agreement in the autumn. As we have discussed numerous times on this podcast, there are plenty of obstacles on the road to that. The air was thick with the sound of cans being kicked down roads, especially the 270-odd roads that cross the Irish border.



Second, the transition period is strictly time-limited. It’s 21 months until December 2020 and that’s it – which many companies, not to mention customs officials, will tell you is not nearly long enough to get the systems in place that are going to be needed.

And third, the transition period came at a very considerable cost, in the sense that an awful lot of British government and Brexiter promises were broken and a great many red lines turned green – from money to borders and, yes, even fish.

With Jon Henley to decipher it all are Dan Roberts, the Guardian’s Brexit policy editor, and Jennifer Rankin in Brussels.

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