Just reading up on the deal, here are a few paragraphs I found.
At that point, Britain will leave the European Union’s single market and customs union, severing the economic integration with the bloc forged in recent decades as part of a huge trading area. Britain formally quit the bloc’s political structures in January but opted to remain under its economic rules until the end of the year, pending a trade agreement.
Critics note that Mr. Johnson’s deal secures little for Britain’s important services sector and means added bureaucracy for British businesses exporting to continental Europe that will have to make millions of additional customs declarations.
What this means basically is the UK is untangling itself from the bureaucracy of the EU but in return said EU has no tarif trading with Britain in return. I don't know if they'll have to give up their seat in the EU parliament but there's supposedly another bill after this one where they hash out those details.
What this means is not a lot in the future I think. But come a crash in the Euro or another European country suffers a black hole in it's budget that needs to be fed with German bank loans it can't pay back, Britain is under no obligation to help them anymore.
Were there really expectations that Brexit would give the UK continued free/easy trade with the EU but also detangle the UK from having any responsibility to the EU?
Depends on how long term you want to think.
The problem here is the degree to which Germany is willing to tank Europe in order to, in the short term, deter more departures.
See, the departure of the UK makes it very likely that the next banking crisis, hell, maybe the next election, will see Greece leave. Greece needs to leave because the only way to fix their economy is to go back to the drachma and massively devalue it against the euro.
The more psychotic continentals such as Guy Verhofstadt and Angela Merkel need to be as punitive as possible towards the UK if they are to hold the Euro together in the short term.
In the long term, well...
The UK is friends with the largest economy in the world, and it's northern neighbor, the largest untapped reserve of natural resources in the world. The anglophone economic zone is gigantic and the UK is the closest part of it to Europe. Long term, Europe can't remain economically hostile to the UK without becoming economically friendly to either Russia or the middle east. They're too dependent on imported resources, chiefly oil. Of the euroblock only Norway has useful reserves, and those are split with the UK.
Europe can't remain economically hostile to the UK without becoming economically friendly to either Russia or the middle east
Germany was busy doing just that long before the word "Brexit" was even an inkling in anyone's imagination, hence Nordstream, and Nordstream 2. The entire EU seems quite eager to latch itself onto Russian natural gas, so much so that they are even willing to sabatoge their own nuclear power capabilities.
Just reading up on the deal, here are a few paragraphs I found.
What this means basically is the UK is untangling itself from the bureaucracy of the EU but in return said EU has no tarif trading with Britain in return. I don't know if they'll have to give up their seat in the EU parliament but there's supposedly another bill after this one where they hash out those details. What this means is not a lot in the future I think. But come a crash in the Euro or another European country suffers a black hole in it's budget that needs to be fed with German bank loans it can't pay back, Britain is under no obligation to help them anymore.
Depends on how long term you want to think.
The problem here is the degree to which Germany is willing to tank Europe in order to, in the short term, deter more departures.
See, the departure of the UK makes it very likely that the next banking crisis, hell, maybe the next election, will see Greece leave. Greece needs to leave because the only way to fix their economy is to go back to the drachma and massively devalue it against the euro.
The more psychotic continentals such as Guy Verhofstadt and Angela Merkel need to be as punitive as possible towards the UK if they are to hold the Euro together in the short term.
In the long term, well...
The UK is friends with the largest economy in the world, and it's northern neighbor, the largest untapped reserve of natural resources in the world. The anglophone economic zone is gigantic and the UK is the closest part of it to Europe. Long term, Europe can't remain economically hostile to the UK without becoming economically friendly to either Russia or the middle east. They're too dependent on imported resources, chiefly oil. Of the euroblock only Norway has useful reserves, and those are split with the UK.
Germany was busy doing just that long before the word "Brexit" was even an inkling in anyone's imagination, hence Nordstream, and Nordstream 2. The entire EU seems quite eager to latch itself onto Russian natural gas, so much so that they are even willing to sabatoge their own nuclear power capabilities.