After nearly four years, MPs in the British parliament on Friday voted overwhelmingly to approved Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s plan for the UK to leave the European Union on January 31st, 2020.
In a 358 to 234 vote, the House of Commons passed the Withdrawal Agreement Bill, which will now be examined further and possibly amended before it’s sent to the House of Lord’s next month, the BBC reports.
Following the vote, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the UK is now “one step closer to getting Brexit done”. Johnson added that the Brexit deal that’s in place will finally put an end to the “acrimony and anguish” that’s plagued the country over the past three years.
“Now is the time to act together as one reinvigorated nation, one United Kingdom, filled with renewed confidence in our national destiny and determined, at last, to take advantage of the opportunities that now lie before us,” Johnson said.
Jeremy Corbyn, the embattled Labor leader who’s largely been blamed for the party’s worst election in years, instructed his MPs to oppose the bill, arguing that there was a “better and fairer way” to leave the European Union. Despite his commands, six Labor MPs backed the bill anyway.