BORIS Johnson will be forced to beg the EU for a THIRD Brexit delay but has warned MPs it will be pointless, expensive and corrosive.
The PM is set to go cap-in-hand to Brussels as the amendment tabled by Remainer Tory Sir Oliver Letwin is expected to sail through the Commons this afternoon.
The amendment would withhold approval of the PMs deal until Parliament has passed the necessary law to enact it.
But crucially that would trigger the Brexit-blocking Benn Act, which requires the PM to write a letter to the EU seeking a three-month extension by 11pm.
But if the Letwin amendment – backed by an alliance of Labour, SNP, Lib Dems and former Tories – succeeds the PM plans to get Tory MPs to boycott the vote on his Brexit deal rendering it meaningless.
‘DEEPLY CORROSIVE’
Mr Johnson has previously said he would rather be dead in a ditch than beg Brussels for more time.
But thanks to the Benn Act he would be breaking the law if he refused to do so.
Today the PM told MPs that the public would lose faith in politicians if they continued to delay Brexit but suggested he would comply with the Act.
In a statement he said: I must tell the House, again, in all candour that whatever letters they may seek to enforce the government to write, it cannot change my judgement that further delay is pointless, expensive and deeply corrosive of public trust.
And people simply dont understand how politicians can say with one breath that they want delay to avoid no deal and then with the next breath that they still want delay when a great deal is there to be done.
‘BURNING DESIRE’
There have been mixed messages from Brussels leaders about whether an extension would be granted.
Emmanuel Macron and Jean-Claude Juncker both ruled out a further delay to Brexit – after Thursday’s crunch summit.
But German Chancellor Angela Merkel told fellow EU chiefs that an extension was unavoidable.
Mr Johnson backed up the thoughts of the French president and European Commission President when he suggested a request for a delay would be turned down by the bloc.
He added Brussels had a burning desire to get Brexit done.
Mr Johnson said: I must tell the House in all candour there is no little appetite among our friends in the EU for this business to be protracted by one extra day.
They have had three and a half years of this debate, it has distracted them from their own projects and their own ambitions.
The PM added: The House has gone to a great deal of trouble to assemble here on the second day, for the first time in a generation, and I do hope that in assembling for the purposes of a meaningful vote that we will indeed be allowed to have a meaningful vote.
