LONDON — To hear British Prime Minister Boris Johnson tell it, he has won an enormous victory, securing a deal that will finally take his country out of the European Union.
So is Brexit done? Not by a long shot.
In reality Johnson has made only as much progress as did his predecessor, Theresa May, who also signed a withdrawal agreement with the E.U.
And in negotiating a new plan Thursday, Johnson had to backtrack on key positions, proposing a deal that according to one study will lead to an annual $63 billion hit to public finances.
This was arguably the easy part: Johnson must now get the support of Parliament when it sits for a rare weekend session on Saturday. Lawmakers crushed May's plan three times — inflicting the heaviest government defeat in parliamentary history in the process.
Johnson's attempt to succeed where she failed is on a knife-edge.
So wait, Brexit isn't over yet?
Far from it, sorry.
The prime minister needs to convince more than half the 650 lawmakers of the House of Commons to back his plan. If they don't, by law he will have to write to the E.U. to ask for another extension — which would be the fourth time the U.K has asked for more time since the Brexit referendum in 2016.
So now it all comes down to a crunch Parliament session dubbed "super Saturday," the first time the chamber has sat on a weekend since the Falklands War in 1982.
Johnson has staked his political career on a promise to leave the E.U. by the current deadline of Oct. 31.
Many E.U. officials now just want it done, too. While expressing sadness at the divorce, they have become frustrated at what has become a chaotic, draining process, and while some may have previously hoped that Brexit could have been averted, many now simply want this to end.
As German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas put it on Friday, "The time for political games is over."
The magnitude of Johnson's task became apparent almost immediately after he secured his deal Thursday, when a range of opponents said they would vote against it.
"Getting the deal through Parliament is going to be difficult but not necessarily impossible," said Tim Bale, a politics professor at Queen Mary University of London. "No one should rule out a deal — momentum is on Johnson's side, after all — but the numbers may not be there, and in the end that's what counts."
The Democratic Unionist Party, Johnson's sometime allies from Northern Ireland, were the first to withdraw their support. They alleged his deal did not look out for their interests and was a threat to the unity of the U.K. itself.
The opposition Labour Party soon followed, condemning the deal as worse than May's. But it appears Johnson's only hope is to persuade some Labour rebels to break ranks and support him.
Why all the opposition? What is in the deal?
Johnson's new deal would enforce a "harder" version of Brexit than the one proposed by May.
After a brief transition period, Britain would break away from E.U. regulations on customs and rules such as the free movement of people and goods.
