Boris Johnson news - live: PM doubles down on no-deal threat hours after government claims he would seek Brexit delay

The Brexit Party's rhetoric is already beginning to ramp up against Boris Johnson - with leader Nigel Farage comparing him to Theresa May on BBC Radio 4's Any Questions in his willingness to believe the country will leave on the 31 due date.

He added:

  Boris had to go for the big agenda. 'We will leave the European Union do or die, come what may, and then when it came to extension, which is what today has been about, that he'd rather 'die in a ditch' than apply for an extension.

And even after the Benn act went through parliament... when he was asked if he would extend he just said no.

And yet today we've seen the court papers saying he will obey the law and he will extend if he can't get a deal agreed. The chances of his deal getting approved by Brussels are hovering at around about zero. He will have to extend and the problem is - I'm not sure that he's lying to anybody, I think that he's deluding himself, that if he tells himself often enough 'We're going to leave on 31 October', rather like Mrs May did, the trust that he's had from Brexiteers in the last seven or eight weeks will start to evaporate very quickly. 

Back onto the EU's declaration that Boris Johnson's plans "do not provide a basis for concluding an agreement" between Brussels and Westminster - it may be the bloc's hang-ups might just be the same as the old ones.

Mujtaba Rahman, who previously worked at the European Commission as well as the UK treasury, says the customs territory in Northern Ireland remains a problem - one the bloc initially proposed to fix with the much maligned Irish backstop.

Part of a longer analysis of the state of play based on discussions on both sides of the channel, he tweeted:

Minister Andrea Leadsom has spoken out after it was reported the death of a 19-year-old in Northamptonshire was caused by a head-on-collision with the car of a US citizen, who has since claimed diplomatic immunity and left the country.

Sky News reports Harry Dunn died near the RAF Croughton military base on 27 August after a woman pulled out of the site and onto the wrong side of the road, crashing into the teenager who was on a motorbike. The woman in question is reported to have been the wife of a US diplomat, and has since returned to the US without charge.

Ms Leadsom tweeted: 

Labour's shadow Brexit secretary Kier Starmer has said he believes the prime minister's proposals to the EU will not make it through the weekend - but that it will be Boris Johnson who calls a halt to them.

Mr Starmer added that he believes this will be the opening salvo of a run of difficulties between No 10 and the EU, which will end in Mr Johnson's refusal to attend the EU summit on 17 October.

Mr Starmer tweeted:

Responding to claims Boris Johnson may be looking to Hungary to veto an extension of Article 50, one of the MPs believed to have been involved in a similar plan has said it may not be the only one.

The Telegraph reports senior ministers had reached out to the eurosceptic Hungarian government to block any agreement to extend article 50, stripping the bloc of the unanimity needed to agree such a deal.

However Daniel Kawczynski, one of the MPs who reportedly reached across the channel to arrange such an agreement in March, said Hungary may not be the only country to oppose the extension.

He tweeted: 

That's all from us tonight, thanks for reading.