UK Prime minister Boris Johnson got a Brexit deal from the EU in October last year, which was turned down by the previous UK Parliament. But, he won a strong majority in December elections which means that his Brexit deal is going through.

But, that means nothing if the UK doesn’t reach a trade deal wit the EU by the end of the year; if they don’t then there will be a hard Brexit, which is what most market participants feared from the beginning. Although, BoJo is sounding confident about a trade deal now. He made some comments earlier:

• We are very likely to get a comprehensive EU trade deal by year-end
• We always have to budget for a complete failure of common sense
• We are going to lead the cause of global free trade

Johnson also made a couple of comments on Scotland, since Sturgeon is trying to get the support for another independence referendum on Scotland, several years after the previous one failed.

• Boris Johnson writes to Nicola Sturgeon to rule out a second Scottish independence referendum
• UK prime minister, Boris Johnson, says another referendum would continue political stagnation in Scotland

GBP/USD jumped higher on his comments about a trade deal with the EU by the end of the year. Although, that’s more wishful thinking. It will be hard to reach a deal in a year, considering that it took Canada 7 years to get a deal done. But, there are hopes because the EU can use the Canadian deal or the Norwegian one as a template, which would cut a lot of time and save energy.