Nearly three and a half years ago, Britain voted to leave the European Union. After yesterday’s resounding Conservative victory in the British General Election, Boris Johnson is now in the best position to deliver on actually leaving.

Early in the day, exit polls predicted that Johnson’s Tories would win around 368 seats, Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party would win only 191 seats, and a few other smaller parties collecting the rest. For context, there are 650 seats in Parliament and a party needs at least 326 to hold a majority. 

The exit polls would prove to be quite accurate. Johnson and the Tories won 364 seats, their best showing since Margaret Thatcher in 1987, and the Labour Party won only 203 seats. This means that Prime Minister Johnson now has a workable majority and puts him in a very strong position to deliver on his promise of passing Brexit by January 31, 2020.

Boris Johnson has only been PM since this summer. He was appointed after his predecessor and fellow Tory Theresa May resigned in the face of a vote of no confidence. Her resignation came after her failure to pass an exit deal for the third time. Boris Johnson’s exit deal doesn’t vary too greatly from May’s. The main hiccup on May’s deal was the Northern Ireland backstop. Had May’s deal passed, the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland would have effectively been absolved. This caused too much debate and disagreement for the bill too pass. Johnson’s exit deal basically removes this clause from the agreement, instead treating Northern Ireland as a sort of Cold War era Berlin; part of it would be treated with EU trade laws and part of it would be treated with UK trade laws. 

This adjustment to the deal has been accepted more than previous iterations, and now with a strong majority, it looks increasingly likely that Brexit can and will take place after the new year.