The EU and UK have reached a post-Brexit trade deal, ending months of disagreements over fishing rights and future business rules.

The UK Prime Minister said the agreement reached with Brussels was a “good deal for the whole of Europe”.

Speaking at a live press conference, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the deal with the European Union will “protect jobs across this country” and has “taken back control of our laws and our destiny”.

READ MORE: Brexit: UK and EU reach agreement on trade deal

Boris Johnson said: “For the first time since 1973 we will be an independent coastal state with full control of our waters with the UK’s share of fish in our waters rising substantially from roughly half today to closer to two thirds in five-and-a-half years time after which there is no theoretical limits beyond those placed by science or conservation on the quantity of our own fish that we can fish in our waters.”

He continued: “Those fishing communities will be helped with a big £100 million pound programme to modernise their fleets, and the fish processing industry.

“And I want to stress that although of course the arguments with our European friends and partners were sometimes fierce, this is I believe a good deal for the whole of Europe.”

The Prime Minister added: “We can, either of us, decide that sovereign equals to protect our consumers or businesses.

“But this treaty explicitly envisages that such action should only happen infrequently, and the concepts of uniformity and harmonisation are banished in favour of mutual respect and mutual recognition and free trade.

“And for squaring that circle for finding that, the Philosopher’s Stone that’s enabled us to do this, I want to thank President Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission, our brilliant negotiators led by Lord Frost, Michel Barnier on the EU side.”

READ MORE: Brexit: Scotland reacts as the UK and EU reach agreement on trade deal

Directly addressing EU nations, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the UK will be “your friend, your ally, your supporter” and “your number one market”.

“And so I say again, directly to our EU friends and partners, I think this deal means a new stability and a new certainty in what has sometimes been a fractious and difficult relationship,” he told a Downing Street press conference.

“We will be your friend, your ally, your supporter, and indeed, never let it be forgotten, your number one market.

“Because although we have left the EU, this country will remain, culturally, emotionally, historically, strategically, geologically attached to Europe.

“Not least of course through the four million EU nationals who have requested to settle in the UK over the last four years and who make an enormous contribution to our country and to our lives.”

Boris Johnson added that the UK financial services sector will be able to thrive under the terms of the trade deal agreed with the EU.

“There is some good language about the equivalence for financial services – perhaps not as much as we would have liked,” he said.

“ But it is nevertheless going to enable our dynamic City of London to get on and prosper as never before.

“We will be able to continue to have massive and growing economic interpenetration without the need for this lunar pull of European law.”

The Prime Minister dismissed a suggestion that he was “mis-selling” the deal in relation to the level-playing field and non-tariff barriers.

Mr Johnson said he disagreed with the question from ITV’s Robert Peston, saying there was a clause in the deal that was “nothing like as damaging as it was”.

“(Which) says that if either country feel that the other one is in some way undercutting or dumping in some way then, subject to arbitration and provided the measure is proportionate – I mean independent arbitration, not arbitration by the European Court of Justice… – they can, if they really choose to, put on tariffs to protect their consumers and their businesses.”

Asked about security arrangements and co-operation with the EU going forward, the Prime Minister said: “On security and police co-operation I’m absolutely confident this is a deal that protects our police co-operation, protects our ability to catch criminals and to share intelligence across the European continent in the way that we have done for many years.

“I don’t think people should have fears on that score, or indeed on any score.”

Mr Johnson was also asked how he recommends people celebrate the deal.

He replied: “I leave your manner of celebration entirely to you, and to individual taste, I think we’ve done quite enough bossing people around recommending this or that over the last ten months or so.”

Boris Johnson said there are “all sorts of things” in the agreement to make sure “things flow as smoothly as we possibly can” at the borders, but added: “I stress that there will be things that people have to do.”

“I think that the UK’s own relationship with it (the EU) was always difficult,” he said.

“I think that what we’ve got here is the basis of a new long-term friendship and partnership that basically stabilises that relationship.

“In so far as the UK needs to be, always must be a great European power … we’re there outside the main body of the EU, but we’re there as a friend and as a supporter, as a flying buttress if you like, to make sure, as we have done so many times in the last couple of 100 years, that we’re able to lend our voice when it’s … of value to our European friends and partners in a strategic way, and that’s what the UK will obviously continue to do.

“I think the very dense programme of integration wasn’t right for the UK and that’s why it was right to take back control in the way that we that we have, and I think that this deal expresses what the people of the country voted for in in 2016.”

The Prime Minister said he hoped there would be a parliamentary vote on the deal on December 30.