Brexit news - LIVE: Parliament descends further into farce after debate abandoned due to leak, as MPs pile pressure on Corbyn over second referendum

Commenting on today's Brexit talks between the government and Labour, a Downing Street spokesperson said:

“Today both sets of negotiating teams met for four and a half hours of detailed and productive technical talks in the Cabinet Office, supported by the civil service. The government and the opposition hope to meet again tomorrow for further work to find a way forward to deliver on the referendum, mindful of the need to make progress ahead of the forthcoming European Council.”

Tory former chancellor Lord Lawson has raised the spectre of "undesirable insurrectionary forces" if parliament refuses to accept the result of the EU referendum, the Press Association reports.

Warning of a "rift" with the public, the pro-Brexit Conservative peer highlighted the danger of "an ugly situation" developing.

Lord Lawson said: "This is the most appalling day. I have served in Parliament for 45 years and there has never been an instance of constitutional vandalism of a scale that we are witnessing at the present time."

Lord Lawson said the UK was now "paying the price" for not having a written constitution and hit out at supporters of the tactics being used, who argued that the issue was so important "that it is necessary and right to tear up the constitution".

He said: "The reverse is the case. The more important the issue, the more important it is that the constitution and the conventions it consists of are respected."

A reminder of what the House of Lords will be voting on later this evening - after MPs in the Commons rushed through the legislation last night preventing a no-deal scenario.

German chancellor Angela Merkel has been speaking in Dublin after holding talks with Irish taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

At a joint press conference, she pledged to "do everything" to prevent a no-deal Brexit. 

She said:

 "Every step of the way we will stand together, we will walk together."

"We do hope that the intensive discussions that are ongoing in London will lead to a situation by next Wednesday, when we have a special council meeting, where prime minister Theresa May will have something to table to us on the basis of which we can continue to talk.

"We want to stand together as 27. Until the very last hour - I can say this from the German side - we will do everything in order to prevent a no-deal Brexit; Britain crashing out of the European Union.

"But we have to do this together with Britain and with their position that they will present to us.

"We will simply have to be able to do this. We have to be successful and we hope for a solution that we can agree together with Britain.

"I heard that you have the same saying as what we say in Germany: 'Where there's a will there's a way'.

"We are working on this and we have very good partners in the Commission, with Michel Barnier and Jean-Claude Juncker who are putting everything into finding a good ending, finding mutual solutions, so we will find this together.

"We still hope, obviously, for an orderly Brexit."

NEW: Conservative Party deputy chairman James Cleverly has been appointed as a Brexit minister, Downing Street has announced.

He will replace Chris Heaton-Harris, who resigned on Wednesday in protest at Theresa May's decision to seek a further delay to Britain's withdrawal from the UK.

In a raft of ministerial appointments, No10 also said Justin Tomlinson will become minister for disabled people - a post that had previously been empty for three weeks. 

The prime minister's principal parliamentary secretary, Seema Kennedy, is promoted to be a health minister, while Andrew Stephenson becomes a business minister. 

Angela Merkel has compared the Northern Irish border to the Iron Curtain as she warned of the risks of returning to a hard border

The government appears to have won the battle in the House of Lords after the opposition parties agreed to delay the final stages of Yvette Cooper's bill to prevent a no-deal Brexit until Monday.

Labour had earlier threatened to force peers to sit through the night to pass the bill but it appears to have backed down after seven hours of debate and behind the scenes talks. 

Government chief whip Lord Taylor told peers that the parties had agreed the bill's second reading would take place on Thursday night but that the remaining stages would be on Monday.

The delay means the bill could come too late to have an impact. The draft law says that, the day after the bill is passed, the government must hold a vote on seeking a further delay to Brexit.

That would need to happen before Wednesday, when Theresa May will travel to an emergency European Council meeting in Brussels to request the extension. 

But if the bill isn't passed by parliament until late on Monday, it is unlikely to receive royal assent from the Queen until Tuesday, meaning the vote would not happen until Wednesday - when Ms May may have already departed for Brussels.

Former Labour MP Fiona Onasanya faced backlash for voting in favour of a bill seeking to delay Brexit after it passed by just one vote.

The disgraced MP still represents Peterborough and was able to vote on Tuesday despite being sentenced to three months in jail in January after lying to police about a speeding offence.

She later tweeted that she voted to extend Article 50 because she “could not support crashing out”.