Boris Johnson news: PM sends unsigned extension request to EU after he is forced to seek delay by MPs

Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, says he has spoken to Boris Johnson tonight.

"Waiting for the letter," he tweeted.

The PM has until 11pm tonight (UK time) to write and request a further delay.

This was the scene earlier in Parliament Square when a giant People's Vote banner was unfurled there.

Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP, is certainly happy after today's events in Parliament.

"Excellent - Johnson's losing run continues and, more importantly, his contradictory promises to the ERG and Labour rebels, and his bad deal overall, can be subjected to real scrutiny," she said.

"PM sounding deflated and defeated - he knows this is a severe blow to his plan to bludgeon his bad deal through." 

Other SNP figures were also pleased.

"Scotland voted remain but the Prime Minister's hard Brexit deal will take us out of the EU, out of the Single Market and out of the Customs Union," said Michael Russell the Scottish government's Constitutional Relations Secretary.

"Boris Johnson has been dealt a humiliating double blow as MPs ordered him to delay Brexit while up to a million voters marched on parliament to demand a Final Say referendum," reports our political editor Andrew Woodcock.

"The prime minister now faces the prospect of court action after telling MPs he will not negotiate an extension to the Article 50 Brexit talks beyond 31 October as required by the law.

"And speaker John Bercow hinted he may strike down a desperate attempt by the government to re-run on Monday the “meaningful vote” on Johnson’s Brexit plan that was thwarted by MPs amid dramatic scenes in the first Saturday sitting of parliament since the Falklands War."

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The prime minister will send a letter requesting an extension today, as required by the Benn Act, according to an EU official.

"Tusk will on that basis start consulting EU leaders on how to react. This may take a few days," the official added.

"MPs have faced anger from protesters as tensions frayed outside parliament in the wake of a major Commons vote," reports political correspondent Lizzy Buchan,

"Jacob Rees-Mogg and his young son Peter were met with shouts of "shame" and "traitor" as they left parliament under a heavy police presence, while business secretary Andrea Leadsom was abused as she walked out of the Palace of Westminster surrounded by officers.

"Footage on social media also showed Labour's Diane Abbott being heckled by pro-Brexit protesters, who told her "it's about time we stopped all this" as she passed outside the Commons with a police escort."

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"It would be wrong to say that “Super Saturday” was, in the end, not a historic occasion," writes parliamentary sketch writer Tom Peck.

"There was plenty of history, it’s just that it didn’t happen in the House of Commons itself, but in a small room just outside it, where, at the end of the unhistoric historic occasion in question, the prime minister’s official spokesperson came to answer questions from journalists about the very unhistoric history they had just witnessed.

"Obviously, the House of Commons avoided having its big, crunch, Brexit vote for a little while longer. Instead of voting on Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, it voted for a complicated amendment by the Tory backbencher, Oliver Letwin, that means MPs will now only give their formal approval to the deal after all the legislation that will be required for it has been passed, both in Westminster, and Brussels.

"Effectively, it was designed to stop the UK crashing out with no deal on a technicality, or by accident, or more specifically, stopping the UK doing what many people still think is the government’s main strategy, which is to crash out of the EU with no deal accidentally-on-purpose."

Read his piece in full here: 

There are some highly contradictory reports tonight about whether the EU is prepared to grant the UK a Brexit extension.

Sky and ITV both report that Emmanuel Macron has ruled an extension out.

But The Guardian reports that Brussels is prepared to grant a Brexit extension if Mr Johnson sends a letter requesting one  - as he is required by law to do.

"Commons Speaker John Bercow has said he is ready to sign the letter to Brussels asking for a delay to Brexit if the courts or parliament ask him to," reports political editor Andrew Woodcock.

"Boris Johnson’s dramatic declaration that he will not negotiate an Article 50 extension with the EU led to immediate threats of legal action from anti-Brexit MPs.

"Scottish National Party MP Joanna Cherry, who led the successful court challenge to the prime minister’s five-week suspension of parliament, said she would go to court on Monday to seek action if Mr Johnson has not sent the letter by then."

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"Boris Johnson must always have known that his best tactic to get his Brexit deal through Parliament was to bounce the Commons into accepting it. It is a bad deal and does not survive close scrutiny. The Commons is proving it so, as the prime minister tries and fails to convince his critics this morning," argues associate editor Sean O'Grady, in an opinion piece.

"The Johnson deal, it is increasingly clear, means everything and nothing – especially the parts about worker, consumer and environmental protection, now in the woolly Political Declaration, which is about as legally binding as the sincere personal pledge by Johnson never to put an economic border down the Irish Sea.

"Johnson, the “greased piglet”, the most shameless snake oil salesman in political history, a man this title has described as boasting the “morals of an alley cat“, should not be taken at his word by any Labour or Liberal Democrat (or, for that, matter Tory) MP."

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