The deal was secured on Christmas Eve, a week before current trading arrangements expire. A UK source said the deal delivered “everything that the British public was promised during the 2016 referendum”. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen were in close contact over recent days to help get the deal over the line. But negotiations led by the EU’s Michel Barnier and the UK’s Lord Frost continued throughout the day as final details were hammered out. Mr Johnson tweeted a picture of himself smiling with both thumbs lifted in the air. “The deal is done,” he wrote.