
This is the kind of majority David Cameron and Theresa May always craved but never reached. If the exit poll is correct, Boris Johnson is set to enjoy more power than any Conservative Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher.
The exit poll projects Johnson will win a majority of 86. That figure is arrived at by calculating the difference between the Conservatives' predicted 368 seats and all the opposition MPs combined, including the Speaker, who does not vote.
For Johnson, the prospect is a far cry from the dogged first months of his premiership -- which saw him losing his parliamentary majority within days of taking power. Then, he was in office but hardly in power. Now he joins Thatcher and Tony Blair as the only leaders in recent times to enjoy such a comfortable majority.
The consequences for Brexit are huge. Johnson should be able to pass whatever form of Brexit he pleases; he'll no longer have to appease the hardliners on the right of his own party, or the moderates and opposition MPs who favor remaining in the EU.
The prospect of a second referendum on Brexit, meanwhile, has virtually disappeared.