Boris Johnson has agreed a deal with the EU - but it doesn't mean Brexit will definitely go ahead
Boris Johnson has announced that he has agreed a Brexit deal with the European Union. 'Breaking news' notifications will have landed on millions of mobile phones following the update this morning - but it still doesn't guarantee that Brexit will happen before the October 31 deadline.
Why? Because MPs still get the final say. And given their history of rejecting Theresa May's deal (three times!), there's no telling whether they'll agree to Boris' suggested arrangement.
The Prime Minister tweeted this morning, "We’ve got a great new deal that takes back control — now Parliament should get Brexit done on Saturday so we can move on to other priorities like the cost of living, the NHS, violent crime and our environment," he wrote, adding the hashtags #GetBrexitDone and #TakeBackControl for good measure.
The finer details of Boris Johnson's new deal are yet to be revealed, but what we do know is that both the UK and EU parliaments will have to approve it before any moves are made for Brexit to actually take place.
In early September, just before Boris unlawfully prorogued parliament, MPs passed a law to prevent leaving the EU without a deal - which was looking increasingly likely. The law states that, unless Parliament has either approved a withdrawal agreement, or approved leaving with no deal by 19 October, the Prime Minister will be forced to seek a further extension of three months for Brexit.
Today, on 17 October, Boris Johnson has established a withdrawal agreement both UK and EU negotiating teams have agreed to (talk about close to the bone). Now, it has to be voted on by MPs to see whether they're happy with it.
On Saturday MPs will cast their vote and, as far as we can tell, if they reject the deal Boris Johnson will have to ask for yet another extension. If they agree to the deal, we will officially be Brexiting.
Judgement day is upon us...
We'll have to wait until the weekend to find out whether all those tiresome Brexit debates really will be over and done with by the end of the month. But with warnings from medical experts that the political chaos is beginning to impact our mental health, it's about time something was sorted.
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