What’s the timetable for Brexit now Boris Johnson has won a majority?

Jon Stone runs through everything you need to know about the coming weeks and years

A pro-EU protester argues with a pro-Brexit protester outside parliament (Getty)

With Boris Johnson winning a majority in the general election, Brexit looks all but certain to go ahead. Here’s what we know about the timetable ahead of us for the next few years.

19 December 2019

The first day the government could formally present the Withdrawal Agreement Bill to the Commons, where it would get its first reading. This would be the first step towards Britain leaving the EU.

9 January 2020

The Withdrawal Agreement Bill is expected to finish its Commons passage and reach the House of Lords by this date. In theory the House of Lords could hold up the bill, but peers aren’t expected to put up too much of a fight – though we’ve been surprised before. Most people estimate that the bill could get through in about a week.

31 January 2020

The day Boris Johnson says Britain will leave the European Union – as Brexiteers call it, “Independence Day”. This will be nearly a year since Theresa May’s original date.

February 2020

There’s no date yet on when Brexit trade talks with the EU will begin, but the teams will probably get to work from February. If they start on 1 February the teams will have 11 months until the end of the transition period to get a deal in place – which would be pretty unprecedented.

July 2020

If the transition period is to be extended, the government must decide to extend it by this point – five months into talks. The dynamic here is interesting, because there’s no cliff edge, it would have to be a decision made at a point when ministers could claim things are going fine.

10 December 2020

The last European Council EU leaders’ summit in Brussels before the end of the transition period – if things go down to the wire this could be interesting. Boris Johnson won’t be an EU leader so won’t be invited as a matter of course, but guests aren’t unheard of.

31 December 2020

The day the transition period is due to finish, and the UK would crash out of the EU on WTO terms if there is no trade deal in place. Some Brexiteers might say this is the real Brexit day – if being untouched by EU laws is what’s of interest.

31 December 2022

The government has said it won’t extend the transition period any further than the end of 2020... but if it does, this is far as the withdrawal agreement will allow.

2 May 2024

This is the date of the next general election under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act – but the government has said it will repeal that.