That is, until now. Over the past week, something significant has happened, which has potentially changed the game. This has not been immediately visible, and will continue to be obscured by the political theater of parliamentary battles over the next week or so. But for the first time in three years, the British government, at least on paper, appears to have assembled a majority in Parliament for a divorce deal with the EU. This may yet fall apart—perhaps as early as today—but it is a big moment all the same.

Read: Is Boris Johnson actually winning?

The development came last week, when Johnson struck a deal with Brussels, paving the way for a hard Brexit—allowing a much looser economic and political relationship with the EU than former Prime Minister Theresa May had envisaged—despite it not having the support of his parliamentary ally, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party. This decision did two important things: First, it united the Conservative Party, including the majority of members of Parliament kicked out of the party by Johnson for voting against him. Second, it won the support of a number of Brexit-supporting opposition MPs. Together, this meant, according to publicly declared intentions, that the government for the first time had a (slim) majority for Brexit (something May never got close to).

This reality was obscured by a move over the weekend to delay ratification of the deal until Parliament had a chance to scrutinize legislation (which is required to integrate the proposed divorce treaty with the EU into domestic British law). In other words, it postponed the day of reckoning when MPs either grant or do not grant consent. A similar tactic will be used by lawmakers again today—seeking to extend the length of time needed to debate the proposed divorce treaty. While these maneuvers do create more time for debate and analysis in Parliament, they also function as a play for time in the hopes of drawing out a mistake from Johnson.

The delaying tactic worked because enough MPs from Johnson’s own side remained sufficiently worried about the prospect of an accidental no-deal Brexit to vote against the government. Johnson’s closest advisers are worried that the same thing will happen again today. If it does, Johnson’s “do or die” commitment to Brexit by October 31 looks in trouble, which is the whole point of the opposition’s move.

Yet a significant number of the MPs who are happy with delay now say they are also willing to support his Brexit deal. In other words, despite being willing to slow the process, they now also appear willing to fall in line and back Johnson.

This is a potentially seismic turning point in the Brexit drama, so long as the government can persuade all those MPs who have professed their support to stick with it. As long as the numbers stay as they are, the game of tic-tac-toe now looks stacked—the opposition’s moves are only delaying tactics unless it finds a way of splitting the majority in favor of Brexit. It either keeps delaying Brexit and risks an election in which Johnson is well placed, with a united party behind him and a deal to present to the public, or it eventually sees its opposition worn down and Brexit delivered.