Boris Johnson has suggested he will ask the EU for a Brexit delay if MPs scupper his plans for a “meaningful” vote on his withdrawal deal.
The prime minister pleaded with MPs to allow the Commons to have a straight vote on his Brexit deal on the so-called “Super Saturday” sitting of parliament.
Former Tory rebels, led by Sir Oliver Letwin, are teaming up with opposition parties to ruin his plans for a vote on the deal by withholding backing for it until all supporting legislation has been approved by MPs.
The Letwin amendment’s backers - an alliance of Labour, SNP, Lib Dems and former Tories are worried that if the Commons backs the deal today, hardline Eurosceptics could game a no-deal Brexit by later rejecting legislation that would put the deal into law before October 31.
If it succeeds, Johnson will order Tory MPs to effectively boycott the subsequent main Brexit vote on the deal, arguing it will be rendered meaningless.
That means Johnson will be forced to write to the EU requesting an Article 50 extension by 11pm on Saturday.
In a statement to MPs on the first Saturday sitting since the outbreak of the Falklands war in 1982, Johnson warned that voters will lose trust in politicians if they force him to delay Brexit but suggested he would comply with the law.
But it came amid speculation that he could send a second letter to the EU making clear he does not want a Brexit delay in an attempt to get European leaders to deny the request for an extension.
Johnson said: “I must tell the House, again, in all candour that whatever letters they may seek to enforce the government to write, it cannot change my judgement that further delay is pointless, expensive and deeply corrosive of public trust,” he said.
“And people simply don’t understand how politicians can say with one breath that they want delay to avoid no deal and then with the next breath that they still want delay when a great deal is there to be done.”
Johnson suggested that any request for an extension could be turned down by EU leaders because they, like the British public, now have a “burning desire to get Brexit done”.
He said: “I must tell the House in all candour there is no little appetite among our friends in the EU for this business to be protracted by one extra day.
“They have had three and a half years of this debate, it has distracted them from their own projects and their own ambitions.”
The PM added: “The House has gone to a great deal of trouble to assemble here on the second day, for the first time in a generation, and I do hope that in assembling for the purposes of a meaningful vote that we will indeed be allowed to have a meaningful vote.”
Steve Baker, leader of the hardline Tory Brexiteer European Research Group (ERG), attempted to reassure backers of the Letwin amendment that his bloc would “support the legislation to completion in good faith, provided it is not spoiled by opponents of Brexit”, in an attempt to ensure a straight vote on Johnson’s deal on Saturday.