Years of political drama surrounding the UK Parliament’s approval of Brexit have come to an end. Tomorrow, Britain will leave behind it 47 years of European Union membership. The reality of Brexit has just started to unfold.

This weekend, there will be emotive issues both in London and in Brussels. Brexiters will celebrate with gusto what they believe is their newly acquired ‘independence’. Remainers will regret that their country will now have little political influence in the way that Europe is shaped.

There will undoubtedly be colourful celebrations in London and beyond as  Boris Johnson and his team engage in some hubris after their political victory to pull Britain out of the EU. In Brussels, three presidents, Ursula von der Leyen, head of the European Commission, Charles Michel, chair of the European Council and David Sassoli, European Parliament president, are to issue a joint statement acknowledging the reality of a smaller EU and hoping for continued friendly relations with Britain.

The reality of the consequences of Brexit will start taking shape in the coming days as Britain and the EU will appoint their negotiating teams to hammer out mutual relations by the end of this year.

Negotiations on post-Brexit relationships will focus mainly on a trade agreement as both sides want to keep trade relationships as friendly as possible.

These negotiations will probably lack the drama surrounding the divorce phase but they will undoubtedly be much more robust. Many understandably argue that 11 months may not be enough to conclude a deal that is acceptable both to the EU and Britain.

One bone of contention will undoubtedly be the issue of state aid. Prime Minister Johnson seems intent to use his newly gained freedom from EU regulations to hand out state money to British industry champions to help them promote more exports and fill the gap of possible loss of business from the EU.

But Michel Barnier, who will be leading the EU negotiating team, is unlikely to abandon the “level playing field” EU philosophy and agree to a UK strategy to promote trade with the EU while at the same time assist British companies to benefit from state aid.

Another potential battleground will be the reciprocal treatment that EU citizens working in Britain expect to receive and the treatment that Britain will expect for Britons working in the EU. The diplomatic niceties will now be replaced by hard-nosed confrontations on defining the details of a post-Brexit contractual relationship between Britain and the EU.

Malta’s involvement in these negotiations will be minimal. The indications so far are that both Britain and Malta want the transition period post-Brexit to be as uneventful as possible. Our shared historical and cultural ties should lead to Britons and Maltese people still fostering friendly relations.

With traditional political and commercial ties between the US and the EU looking increasingly shaky, the EU must foster good relations with Britain even if it no longer forms part of the Union.

Britain will do well to acknowledge that while no longer forming part of a political union, its destiny will depend on the success or failure the EU achieves in promoting Europe as a beacon of democracy and freedom for all Europeans.