He wanted to get Brexit done – but has Boris Johnson managed it yet?

End of the road? This is barely the end of the beginning, writes John Rentoul

Precious little will change for the 11 months of the transition period (AFP)

Boris Johnson said on Wednesday: “Parliament has passed the withdrawal agreement bill, meaning we will leave the EU on 31 January and move forwards as one United Kingdom. At times it felt like we would never cross the Brexit finish line, but we’ve done it.”

Well, not quite. As his hero once said, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

Actually it was not even that. The House of Lords passed the bill, having offered its token resistance of sending five amendments back to the Commons to have them overturned by majorities of between 86 and 103.

The bill still had to receive the royal assent, however, which happened yesterday. Now there are still a few more steps. The European parliament has to approve the withdrawal agreement. Yesterday its constitutional committee recommended approval, and there will now be a vote in a full session of parliament in Brussels on Wednesday next week.

There was a tiny chance the House of Lords might have caused trouble for the withdrawal process, but in the end the bill was passed without a vote. There is an even tinier chance that the European parliament will withhold approval: it was consulted throughout the negotiations and tends to follow the Commission’s lead in any case. The approval resolution has already been drafted.

There are two further formalities to be completed before we leave. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, has to deposit a signed copy of the withdrawal agreement in Brussels. And the European Council, the leaders of the 27 remaining member states, needs to give its formal approval, which will take the form of the signature of Charles Michel, the council president.

Then and only then will Britain be ready to “cross the Brexit finish line”, an event that will happen at 11pm British time next Friday – or midnight central European time.

The Daily Mail has obtained a draft of the script for the prime minister and other senior ministers to use on the day. It talks of “the start of a new chapter in the history of our country, in which we come together and move forward united, unleashing the enormous potential of the British people”.

The message will be underlined by a meeting of the cabinet held in the north, after which Johnson will return to No 10 to make a televised address to the nation in the evening. There are plans for a light show, although as Downing Street is closed to the public, we will be able to watch it only on TV, while Brexit supporters are expected to gather in Parliament Square, where Nigel Farage, leader of the soon-to-be-renamed Brexit Party, promises a rival light show.

Then on Saturday 1 February we will wake up no longer citizens of the EU. Nothing else will change for the 11 months of the transition period, except that EU nationals will not be allowed to vote in our local elections in May 2020.

And, as the ghost of Winston Churchill will tell the prime minister, that will be only the end of the beginning. The negotiation of the post-transition trade relationship will be just as complex and difficult as anything about Brexit so far, but the domestic political temperature is likely to fall by several degrees and most of our headlines are going to be dominated by Other Things.