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Remainer MPs warn that shutting down Parliament to force through a No Deal Brexit would be a ‘KAMIKAZE ACT’ by the next PM as Boris says that he will only agree a ‘fundamental’ deal with the EU that totally removes the Irish border backstop

  • Rebels Dominic Grieve and Dame Margaret Beckett behind report on No Deal
  • Leadership debate saw Hunt and Johnson rule out a deal involving a ‘backstop’
  • It raises the chances of the UK crashing out of the EU on October 31
  • Remainers warned proroguing Parliament to achieve this would spark election 

Remainer MPs warned the next prime minister today that any attempt to shut down Parliament to force through a No Deal Brexit would be a ‘kamikaze act’ that could see them booted out of power. 

Senior rebel Tory Dominic Grieve and Labour’s Dame Margaret Beckett will issue a warning to Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt later that seeking a unilateral departure from the EU would risk sparking a general election. 

It came after a leadership head-to-head between he two men vying to be the next Tory leader saw them both rule out any deal involving a ‘backstop’ arrangement for customs on the Irish border –  raising the prospect of crashing out on October 31.

Mr Johnson told the Sun/TalkRadio event he was ‘not attracted to time limits or unilateral escape hatches or all these elaborate devices, glosses, codicils and so on that you could apply to the backstop’, while Mr Hunt said ‘the backstop, as it is, is dead’.

In a new People’s Vote report today Mr Grieve and Dame Margaret warn that a No Deal Brexit without parliamentary approval would be ‘a democratic outrage’.

They added: ‘If a new prime minister prorogued Parliament to force it through, it is inconceivable that they would retain the confidence of the House of Commons, so it would be a kamikaze act.’

Both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt last night dismissed any sort of Irish border backstop being part of a Brexit deal

In a new People’s Vote report today Mr Grieve and Dame Margaret warn that a No Deal Brexit without parliamentary approval would be ‘a democratic outrage’.

Mr Grieve, the former attorney general, is spearheading efforts by MPs to block a No Deal Brexit as part of the so-called ‘Gaukeward Squad’ of moderate Tories led by David Gauke and Philip Hammond.

At a launch event this morning he is due to say that any leader who pushed for No Deal would be ‘risking a General Election which, far from ending the Brexit crisis, will really only deepen it’.

He is expected to add: ‘Some talk about an alliance in such an election with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party as if it could deliver a landslide but, even if that was the case, it would not be for a party that Churchill, Macmillan, Thatcher or Major would recognise. 

 ‘It would be a victory for a virulent form of populism that is a threat to our most cherished values and our democracy. It would be the end of the Conservative Party as we know it.’

Opposition to the backstop was one of the key reasons outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit deal was rejected three times by MPs – losses that ultimately forced her to resign.

But a senior MP the Democratic Unionist Party, which props up the Conservatives in parliament and opposed May’s deal, said last month the party was not looking for ‘earth-shattering’ changes to the backstop.

Eliminating a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland and providing frictionless trade was a crucial part of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 which  ended three decades of sectarian violence.

Labour’s Dame Margaret Beckett was also behind the report, which warned of the steps MPs could take to block a No Deal Brexit

Mr Johnson was unable last night to give a cost of no-deal Brexit preparations when challenged on his claim that leaving without an agreement would cost a ‘vanishingly inexpensive’ amount.

‘It depends how well we prepare,’ he said to laughter from the audience.

Challenged that he had not costed it, he replied: ‘No, no. The Treasury will produce all sorts of spine-chilling figures, of course it will, but actually I think if we get our act together in the way that we can, we can minimise the cost of Brexit under any circumstances and we can turn it into a fantastic opportunity.’

Mr Hunt said, though, that ‘there are real costs’.

‘I think you can minimise the costs of a no-deal Brexit but I don’t think you can say they are vanishingly small,’ Mr Hunt said.

  

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