No 10 has announced that a five-week suspension parliament will begin tonight, as Boris Johnson’s flies back from his first official meeting with Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar in Dublin.
It comes as the prime minister sets up a possible Brexit showdown in the Supreme Court after it emerged No 10 is ready to launch a legal fight against the anti-no deal legislation.
Mr Johnson is also reportedly ready to send a second letter to the EU – alongside the request for a three-month delay required of him – explaining he does not actually want any delay after 31 October. Labour figures branded the plan “illegal” and “monumentally ridiculous”.
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Boris Johnson is reportedly ready to send a second letter to the EU - alongside the formal request for a three-month Brexit delay required of him by the Benn bill - explaining that he does not actually want any delay after 31 October.
Labour figures branded the scheme, first revealed in The Daily Telegraph, both “ridiculous” and illegal.
Charlie Falconer, the former Lord Chancellor, said any attempt to destroy the “statutory purpose” of the letter to Brussels requested of the PM would be to “break law”.
Labour’s shadow solicitor general Nick Thomas-Symonds said the idea of sending two conflicting letters was “monumentally ridiculous”.
The battle for Brexit is heading for a nail-biting showdown in the Supreme Court in late October. Our deputy political editor Rob Merrick has all the details.
Brexit heading for dramatic Supreme Court showdown, after Boris Johnson’s new strategy is revealed
Legal fight and constitutional crisis looms in late October – with deadline for crashing out of EU just days awayTory MP Nigel Evans said Boris Johnson is more likely to call for a vote of no confidence in his own government or force an election via another means than to go to Brussels to ask for an Article 50 extension.
The joint executive secretary of the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs told the Today programme: “I cannot see under the current circumstances Boris Johnson going to Brussels and asking for that extension.”
Boris Johnson is travelling to Dublin today for his first official meeting with the Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar.
When he returns to London he is expected to ramp up the pressure on MPs to back a snap general election, before the suspension of parliament happens at some point in the coming days.
An opposition law, dubbed the Benn bill after Labour MP Hilary Benn, that would extend the Brexit deadline until January 2020 is expected to receive royal assent before prorogation kicks-in.
On Sunday, Johnson bunkered down in Chevening, the foreign secretary’s country residence, with his closest aides, understood to have included chief strategist Dominic Cummings, where he is understood to have wargamed how the crucial week ahead could pan out.
Tory rebel David Gauke – leader of the so-called “Gaukeward squad” now expelled from the party – said the idea of sending two conflicting letters to the EU “carries no weight”.
He thinks the Benn bill set to receive royal assent today would not allow Boris Johnson to write that second, conflicting letter.
A former Supreme Court justice has also said it would not be legal for Boris Johnson to apply for a Brexit extension while simultaneously trying to get the EU to reject it in a second letter.
Lord Sumption was asked if it would be legal for the PM to do so.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “No, of course it wouldn’t. The Bill, or Act as it’s about to become, says that he’s got to apply for an extension. Not only has he got to send the letter, he’s got to apply for an extension.
“To send the letter and then try to neutralise it seems to me, plainly, a breach of the Act. What you’ve got to realise is the courts are not very fond of loopholes.”
Reports over the weekend suggested Northern Ireland secretary Julian Smith was one of the cabinet members considering following Amber Rudd and quitting government. But he has dismissed those rumours.
The latest ComRes survey suggests why Boris Johnson’s team are so desperate for a snap election.
It shows the Tories would be three points ahead of Labour if a general election were held before 31 October 31.
But if the PM does not deliver the “do or die” pledge to deliver Brexit by then, Labour would be on 28 per cent to the Tories’ 26 per cent – with the Brexit Party suddenly resurgent.
There is better news for No 10 in a YouGov poll, which gives the Tories a 14-point lead over Labour, while an Opinion survey puts the Conservatives 10 points ahead.
Yet Deltapoll’s latest survey shows only a three-point lead. Britain Elects has compiled the latest numbers.
Nigel Farage has been shouting from the rooftops about an electoral arrangement with the Tories.
Since the Tories aren’t listening, so Farage has decided to unilaterally enact his “non-aggression pact” whether No 10 likes it or not.
His Brexit Party will not stand against the 28 Tory MPs in the European Research Group – the gang of Brexiteer ultras that includes Mark Francois and Steve Baker.
Farage explained the plan on Good Morning Britain.
Get ready for impeachment to become a Westminster talking point, as well as a Washington one.
Plaid Cymru’s Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts has said opposition leaders should be ready to impeach Boris Johnson if he tries to ignore legislation requiring him to seek another Brexit extension.
Saville Roberts said that Johnson had previously backed an attempt in 2004 to impeach the then prime minister Tony Blair over the Iraq war.
“Boris Johnson has already driven a bulldozer through the constitution, so no longer are ideas like impeachment far-fetched,” she said.
“I will tell other opposition party leaders, we need to be ready to impeach Boris Johnson if he breaks the law.
“We cannot play the prime minister at his own cynical game. We need to be ready to fight fire with water, outsmart the smartest, think the unthinkable.
“No one is above the law, Boris Johnson shouldn’t risk finding that out the hard way.”
Impeachment is not the only wild idea in the air at the moment. A scenario in which Boris Johnson goes to prison is also being discussed.
At the weekend, Lord Macdonald, a former director of public prosecutions, said Boris Johnson, like any citizen, would be jailed if they failed to “purge their contempt”.
“A refusal in the face of that would amount to contempt of court which could find that person in prison,” he said.
Tory rebel Dominic Grieve, a former attorney general, said: “If he continues, then a legal challenge will be brought in court to order the government to comply, and it will include, if necessary, an injunction requiring him to do this.
“If he doesn't do that he could be brought before the court and, technically speaking, he could be sent to prison for contempt.”
Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar has welcomed his British counterpart to Dublin at the door. Boris Johnson was overheard mentioning the “very well behaved press”.
Varadkar said: “We both agree we have much to discuss, we accept the democratic and sovereign decisions to leave the EU.
“However in my view the story of Brexit won’t end if the UK leaves the EU the 31st October or 31st of January.
“There is no such thing as a clean break.”
Speaking alongside Varadkar, Boris Johnson said: “We must restore the government in Stormont ... and of course we must get Brexit done. We must come out of the EU by October 31st or else I fear permanent damage will be done.”
He said the UK would “never, ever institute checks at the (Irish) border”.
Johnson also claimed he would “overwhelmingly prefer” to get a deal.
“I want to find a deal. I want to get a deal. Like you I’ve looked carefully at no deal … and yes of course we could do it … but that outcome would be a failure of statecraft for which we would all be responsible.”
Leo Varadkar tells Boris Johnson he’s yet to receive “realistic, legally-binding and workable” plans to replace the backstop.
Boris Johnson is asked: “When you talk about people being dead in ditches, there is a sense that you don’t really understand what is at stake here … when did you last visit the [Irish] border?”
Johnson says in reply that everyone understands the political sensitivities of the border, before saying: “But also we must allow UK democratic decision to be honoured, I genuinely think it can be done, there is a way forward and I'm delighted it's been approached in a positive way in Dublin.”
He also claimed “an abundance of proposals” for the alternative to the backstop.
Here’s the moment Johnson said a no-deal outcome “would be a failure of statecraft for which we would all be responsible”.
Some reaction to that joint press conference in Dublin, in which Leo Varadkar admonished Boris Johnson for not presenting any alternative to the backstop.
Jailed far-right activist Tommy Robinson appears to have provided an endorsement for Boris Johnson. The operators of Robinson’s official Telegram channel called on Sunday evening for supporters to “back Boris”.
Tom Embury-Dennis has all the details.
Tommy Robinson just endorsed Boris Johnson
'We back Boris, now just get us out of the EU,' message on far-right activist's Telegram channel readsHere’s our political editor Andrew Woodcock on Leo Varadkar pouring cold water on Boris Johnson’s claims progress is being made on a Brexit deal.
