I am not so sure. Johnson does not want a clean break. And Farage and the DUP have made clear they will not support the deal. If there is an election, Brexit and Conservatives will split vote in Labour areas (north) and Labour may yet get in power. If Corbyn or Corbyn + LibDem is the govt, there will be NO Brexit.
Best thing for Johnson is to prepare for an election with Brexit Party as partners. Brexit will prevail in the North, and Conservatives the South? And then they can negotiate trade deals out of EU. But Johnson will not deal with Brexit, which tells me he may not even want to win the election.
> Johnson does not want a clean break.
Are you certain about this? How much of Saturday at Commons was, in actuality, kabuki?
At this point, I believe he does. In theory, there may be a model for a deal out there that Johnson would genuinely prefer to no deal, but he knows at this stage he has no chance of achieving that - any deal he personally devised based on his own desires would never be approved by Parliament - and he would prefer to leave via no deal than to push for something that would never happen.
I think some people are misunderstanding that the deal Johnson is currently placing before Parliament is not something he wants - he has tried to get a deal of some sort because Parliament is insisting he does so, and what he's presenting isn't his preference but what he has been able to get the EU to agree to, that he thinks has some chance of passing the British Parliament. It's a compromise from necessity - the necessity of Parliament being unable to come to a coherent conclusion of what a majority of it wants, but also being unwilling to come to a majority decision for no deal.
If this current deal gets up - well, getting out with an imperfect deal is better than not getting out at all. Getting out with no deal rather than this imperfect deal would be better still - but Johnson cannot just make that happen.