UK Ratifies Brexit Deal As Leaders Sign New Chapter By Jitendra JOSHI with Dave CLARK in Brussels on December 31 2020 10:48 AM Britain and the EU signed a post-Brexit trade deal on Wednesday, sealing their drawn-out divorce in the closing hours before the UK definitively ends its half-century European experiment. Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel, the heads of the European Commission and European Council, smiled at a brief televised ceremony to put their names to the 1,246-page Trade and Cooperation Agreement in Brussels. The deal was signed just hours before the UK leaves the EU single market at the end of the year