Boris Johnson has been given a blank cheque for Brexit – but cashing it won’t be easy  

Brexit has been stuck for a year. Last December, Parliament was presented with a withdrawal deal – and reacted with a combination of knife-edge and sledgehammer votes. Almost every way forward was ruled out.  

But the general election result has broken the parliamentary stalemate. Boris Johnson now has a control over the Commons. However, Brexit is not all about votes in Westminster.  

A big majority does not change the fundamental choices the UK – and Boris Johnson – are still to make. It doesn’t turn the ‘biggest and most complex challenge in peacetime history’, as the late cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood once described Brexit, into a gentle stroll. It makes life easier, but it certainly doesn’t make it easy – far from it, as the PM will soon discover.  

Boris Johnson’s majority makes Parliament less of a rottweiler – more of a rubber stamp 

The UK will leave the EU on 31 January. The withdrawal agreement bill will pass. But that isn’t the end of the parliamentary task on Brexit. 

The government needs to pass bills in areas like immigration, agriculture, fisheries and trade. But bills on areas that once proved controversial are now likely to breeze through, and the uncomfortable amendments of last year will be stripped out when the legislation is re-introduced. And it is hard to see a Parliamentary majority for many – or any – awkward new amendments. 

The prime minister will no longer be filled with dread at the prospect of the votes to approve negotiating mandates and the future relationship. Johnson can use Parliament to show progress and demonstrate support for his position on Brexit, rather than see each vote as a fight for survival.  

Boris Johnson won’t be only one looking to put his majority to use – so will the EU 

A stronger position in Parliament doesn’t necessarily translate to a stronger hand at the negotiating table. The EU will certainly see Johnson as a prime minister who is easier to do business with. He can guarantee the UK’s exit from the EU, who will also be confident that any future relationship is much less likely to get stuck in Westminster. 

However, Johnson returns to 10 Downing Street as a prime minister who is now capable of making concessions. When Johnson’s team were in Brussels in October, one of their only negotiating cards was ‘unless you offer concessions, the deal won’t pass’. But with a ‘stonking majority’, there is more the prime minister can swallow. Areas like fishing rights and alignment on rules look less of a deal breaker, but only if the prime minister is prepared to sign up. 

But before we get to the detailed negotiations in Brussels, Johnson needs to work out what he wants. One part of his party will hope the election result is the beginning of a pivot to a softer Brexit. Another part of the party will see it as a ringing endorsement of a looser relationship with the EU. They can’t both be right. Johnson successfully worked out which way the wind was blowing in the parliamentary party after the 2016 referendum – but now he can make the weather, it is far from clear what he wants. 

A big majority won’t make the practicalities of Brexit any easier – unless it is used to buy time 

Life outside the EU, which begins on 1st February, will feel identical to the day before. At the ports, airports and all of the places where there have been warnings of disruption, life will continue as normal. The transition period, which gives the UK 11 months in which to negotiate and ratify the new deal, is due to end on New Years Eve 2020. If the UK has failed to agree a future relationship by this point then it will be facing another no deal exit. 

The threat of no deal – even if it is a different type of no deal – will hang over next year. The government will need to spend that time preparing for that outcome, alongside making preparations for the prospect of a (yet to be agreed) deal. A majority of 80 MPs won’t make much difference to the practical job of preparing for change – rather it will be the almost 30,000 civil servants working on Brexit by March. The civil service will need to work flat out all year, again, to help prepare – but even with the extra time the task is unprecedented in scale and complexity. 

Business also needs to prepare. Johnson will need to decide whether to tell industry early next year that, contrary to some of the messages of this election campaign, Brexit is not yet done and a December 2020 no deal is still a threat. And if Johnson is serious about his December 2020 deadline then he will need to work out how to give business time to adapt to any deal.  So perhaps, early next year, business might find its voice in the Brexit debate – particularly if there is a June deadline for the UK to ask for an extension to the transition period. 

Whether asking the EU for extra time, giving up fishing rights or opting for a Brexit that causes serious disruption in the UK, the prime minister faces some inescapable decisions that will use up his political capital.  

Johnson has been given a very big, very blank cheque by the electorate for Brexit – one which he now needs to work out how to spend.