The United Kingdom has signed a new post-Brexit deal with the European Union, aiming to boost trade and expand business opportunities.

Signed by the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, on 19 May 2025, the agreement also plans to ease trade restrictions on goods and services between the UK and mainland Europe.

At a London press conference with EU leaders that same day, Sir Keir called the agreement a “landmark deal”.

“This is the first UK-EU summit that marks a new stage in our relationship. And this deal, is a win-win,” he said.

But the agreement has been criticised by the Conservative Party, particularly the idea of a proposed youth mobility scheme.

The scheme would aim to facilitate movement and cultural exchange between the UK and the EU for young people aged 18-30.

It would also allow these individuals to live, work and study in the other country for a specified period and would be a reciprocal agreement for citizens in both the UK and EU.

The criticisms largely stem from question marks around what impacts the UK-EU deal could have on UK immigration levels.

This comes as Sir Keir and the UK government have pledged to reduce immigration levels in the coming years.

Professor Patrick Diamond, an academic at Queen Mary University of London, specialising in public policy, said the government was “extremely sensitive” about the mobility scheme.

He said: “It does not want to give the impression that it is going to be, in any sense, soft on immigration.”

The new deal is an amendment to the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement, negotiated by Boris Johnson’s government in 2020.

The Withdrawal Agreement established the terms for the UK to withdraw from the EU, in accordance with Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union.

Key parts of the deal include having more e-gates at European airports, pet passports replacing animal health certificates and easing the trade of meat products between the UK and EU.

Conservative Party leader, Kemi Badenoch, has said the deal is “a total capitulation”.

Addressing the Commons at Prime Minister’s Questions, she said: “This renegotiation should have been an opportunity to improve terms for our country.

The terms have been improved for the EU.”

There have been no changes for UK fishing rights.

The trade deal includes the agreement to roll over the existing fishing agreement from 2020 for another 12 years, until 2038, maintaining current access for EU vessels to UK waters.

But Kemi Badenoch said that the government’s actions “lock out” British fishermen.

She added that the UK is now in a worse position than the Faroe Islands, a small territory located between the UK, Iceland and Norway, who negotiate access to their waters annually.

“Why is the Prime Minister selling our fishermen down the river?” she said.

Professor Diamond added that, for the UK, the whole deal is a “stepping stone” towards closer economic alignment with the EU.

“It probably does mean moving towards arrangements where the borders across the movement of goods and services are substantially removed, if not entirely dismantled.”