The House of Commons voted in favor of the deal, paving the way for an orderly split with the bloc that will eventually complete the four and a half years of Brexit's journey since Britain voted to leave the EU, which has joined since 1973.
The agreement, hammered out after more than nine months of tense negotiations and sealed on Christmas Eve, will ensure Britain and the 27-nation EU can continue to trade in goods without tariffs or quotas.
That should help protect the 1.1 trillion dollars in annual trade between the two sides, and the hundreds of thousands of jobs that rely on it.
