which Prime Minister Johnson controversially dubbed the 'Surrender Act'. The Act required the Prime Minister to request a formal extension to Article 50 if a new withdrawal agreement had not been approved by Parliament by 19 October 2019. After having agreed a revised withdrawal agreement (WA) with the European Union on 17 October, the Government put a motion before the House of Commons in a rare Saturday sitting on 19 October. This motion requested approval for the revised WA, such that the Benn Act would have been satisfied and no extension to Article 50 would be legally required. An amendment to the motion was passed, withholding formal approval of the WA until all the necessary legislation had been passed by Parliament. The following week, the full Withdrawal Agreement Bill (WAB) was introduced. It passed a second reading, but the programme motion for the bill put forward by the Government was voted down. This meant that there was no guarantee that the legislation would be passed in time to allow the United Kingdom to legally withdraw from the European Union (EU) on 31 October. Johnson had made withdrawal from the EU by this date "with no ifs, buts or maybes" a key pledge during his campaign for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Johnson then immediately halted the WAB, and then called for a general election to be held. He made clear his view that Parliament was "...refusing to deliver Brexit. It's impossible to deliver legislation. It's time, frankly, the opposition summoned up the nerve to submit themselves to the judgment of our collective boss, which is the UK." After failing to gain the necessary support of two-thirds of all MPs to call an election under the provisions of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, the Government indicated its intention to pass a short bill requiring only a simple majority of votes to hold such an election. The early parliamentary general election act was passed on 29 October 2019 and specified that a general election was to be held on 12 December 2019. This election resulted in Johnson's Conservatives winning of a majority of 80 seats in the House of Commons, a significant improvement on their 2017 result, and indeed the Party's largest majority since 1987, under Thatcher. The party won several constituencies, especially in Northern England but also in the Midlands and North Wales (often dubbed Labour's Red Wall), that the party