Brexit Is Finally Done, but U.K. Ambitions Already Seems Outdated

The European Union, by contrast, has continued to negotiate a landmark investment treaty with China, a goal of the Germans, who want greater control over the Chinese operations of their companies. Last-minute objections raised by aides to Mr. Biden are giving the Europeans second thoughts, but Germany’s drive to finish the deal before the end of the year attests to its more confident position.

In 2016, Brexit was embraced by three distinct factions in British politics, said Matthias Matthijs, a professor of international political economy at Johns Hopkins University: right-wing anti-immigration figures like Nigel Farage; orthodox free traders in the Conservative Party; and some on the left, who hoped the move would free up money to subsidize factory jobs in the country’s industrial north and, in any event, regarded the European Union as a bankers’ club that Britain was well out of.

“It’s not clear that signing this E.U. trade deal will give them more freedom to do that,” Mr. Matthijs said of the subsidies, noting that Britain had agreed to abide by constraints on how much state aid it can dole out to industry.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/world/europe/brexit-deal-boris-johnson.html