Boris Johnson news live: No-deal Brexit looms as Gove claims EU is ‘refusing to negotiate’ with UK and Brussels rejects No 10’s tactics

Good morning and welcome to The Independent's live coverage of events at Westminster and beyond. Boris Johnson has been criticised by EU officials for his intransigence over Brexit, while Dominic Raab goes to North America in a bid to "fire up" trade relations with Canada, the US and Mexico.

Boris Johnson has been accused of acting like a Stuart king seeking a “divine right to rule” as fears grow he will defy parliament and simply ignore any no-confidence vote until after 31 October. Our political editor Andrew Woodcock has the details.

Dominic Raab will seek to “fire up” the UK’s trade relationship with the US as he begins his three-day tour of North America to promote post-Brexit opportunities.

His second major overseas trip since being appointed foreign secretary starts in Toronto on Tuesday before moving on to Washington on Wednesday and Mexico City on Thursday.

“I’m determined that we fire up our economic relationships with non-European partners,” he said.

Raab said there was a “consistent warmth” for Britain and a “desire to work more closely with us” from 20 foreign ministers from across Asia-Pacific who he met during his visit to Thailand last week.

Some harsh words from Larry Summers, the former US treasury secretary, who has claimed it is “delusional” for Britain to expect a favourable trade deal with the US.

“I’m not sure what Britain wants from the United States that it can plausibly imagine the United States will give,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“If Britain thinks that the American financial regulators who have great difficulty coming together on anything are going to come together to give greater permissions and less regulation of UK firms, I would call that belief close to delusional.”

He added: “Look at it from America’s point of view: Britain has much less to give than Europe as a whole did, therefore less reason for the United States to make concessions. You make more concessions dealing with a wealthy man than you do dealing with a poor man.

“Second, Britain has no leverage. Britain is desperate. Britain has nothing else. It needs an agreement very soon. When you have a desperate partner, that's when you strike the hardest bargain.”

Not everyone agrees with Larry Summers, however. US Senator Tom Cotton – a Republican – said Britain should be at the “front of the queue” for a trade deal with the US.

“Many of my colleagues in the Congress would say that Great Britain should be in the front of the queue given everything our nations have gone through together,” he told Today.

“Obviously it wouldn’t be a matter of days or weeks for such negotiations, it might be months, but I would suspect it would be months not years.”

European diplomats now believe that Boris Johnson’s “central scenario” is to crash out without a Brexit deal and the British officials have no intention of negotiating in good faith.

Here’s our political correspondent Lizzy Buchan with more.

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith has responded to the former US treasury secretary’s comments about “desperate” Britain on the Today programme.

“This is a classic attempt by Larry Summers to use Brexit for domestic point-scoring,” said IDS.

“Forty-five Republican senators have signed a letter to the prime minister pledging to back a trade deal with Britain once we have left the EU. The president himself has expressed his enthusiasm for a UK-US deal.

“If, as Mr Summers suggests, we were only offered a bad deal by the US, we would not accept it. Trade deals must be mutually beneficial to be acceptable to both sides.

“The Democrats, fortunately, are not in control of US trade deals.”

Boris Johnson’s senior adviser Dominic Cummings has accused former chancellor Philip Hammond of trying to block preparations for a no-deal Brexit when he was at No 11.

Andrew Woodcock has more on the row.

Apparently Boris Johnson doesn’t want his time at No 10 to be defined by Brexit. Can he address income inequality and the north-south divide?

New research from the highly-respected Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) shows that a growing proportion of the wealthiest taxpayers in the country are concentrated in London and the south east.

The proportion of the top one per cent of taxpayers living in London grew by a fifth in a little over a decade, the figures show. Our political editor Andrew Woodcock examines the details.

Lord Price, the former Waitrose MD and ex-trade minister, claimed food supplies Britain gets from the rest of the world does not match what we get from EU countries.

Warning of the impact Brexit will have, the Conservative peer says 76 per cent of our veg currently comes from Europe.