Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal won support from the European Parliament’s most influential members on Thursday, making the agreement’s approval effectively a formality.
The assembly’s constitutional affairs committee voted by 23 to 3 in favor of the withdrawal deal agreed between Johnson and the bloc in October. Earlier on Thursday, the agreement passed into U.K. law after being signed by Queen Elizabeth II.
The moves bring to a close the political crisis triggered by the U.K.’s vote to leave the European Union in 2016. Former Prime Minister Theresa May failed to get her divorce deal through the House of Commons after reaching agreement with the EU in November 2018. Johnson only managed to pass his revised version after winning a large majority in last month’s general election.
“There is nothing to celebrate today,” Pedro Silva Ferreira, a Portuguese Socialist member of the European Parliament, told the committee in Brussels. “Brexit is a regrettable moment in the history of the European Union and the history of Europe.”
The full parliament, which formally has a veto over the deal, will vote on Jan. 29. It will almost certainly follow the committee’s lead. The U.K. is scheduled to leave the EU two days later.
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