Managing the UK's relationship with the EU

After the 2016 referendum, the UK government had to decide how it would manage the task of extricating the UK from the European Union after 47 years of membership. Now the UK has left, and the transition period ended, the government needs to work out how it will organise itself to manage its relationship with its largest trading partner.

This paper first sets out the framework provided by the agreements with the EU – the Trade and Cooperation Agreement signed on Christmas Eve last year, and the Withdrawal Agreement. It also looks at key domestic legislation, namely the UK Internal Market Act. We assess how the government appears to be approaching these in the first months of 2021 – and what more it needs to address now and in the future.