Prime Minister Boris Johnson says he will not negotiate a Brexit delay with the European Union, and hopes for a new vote on Tuesday

A defiant Boris Johnson said he would not negotiate a further delay to Britain’s departure from the European Union after parliament voted on Saturday to postpone a vote on his Brexit deal.

Parliament voted 322 to 306 in favour of an amendment put forward by Oliver Letwin, a former Conservative cabinet minister.
According to legislation passed earlier, the vote means Johnson is obliged to write to the European Union seeking a delay beyond Britain’s scheduled departure date of October 31.

But Johnson has repeatedly vowed he will not do this and on Saturday he stuck to that line.

“I will not negotiate a delay with the EU and neither does the law compel me to do so,” Johnson told parliament.

“I will tell our friends and colleagues in the EU exactly what I have told everyone else in the last 88 days that I have served as prime minister: that further delay would be bad for this country, bad for the European Union and bad for democracy.”

The vote however means the government will not hold a vote on its Brexit deal on Saturday as planned. Johnson said he would put it to a vote on Tuesday.

He said he still believes he can command “overwhelming” support for the new Brexit divorce plan and will introduce the required legislation to make that happen.

The leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, demanded that the government delay Brexit. “The prime minister must now comply with the law,” Corbyn said.

Letwin’s amendment proposed that a decision on whether to back a Brexit deal be deferred until all the legislation needed to implement it has been passed through parliament.

Even though Johnson believes this can be achieved by October 31, others think it would need a short ‘technical’ delay in Britain’s departure from the EU.

A law passed by Johnson’s opponents obliges him to ask the EU for a Brexit delay until January 31, 2020 if he could not secure approval for his deal by the end of Saturday.

“My aim is to ensure that Boris’s deal succeeds,” Letwin said earlier. But he wanted “an insurance policy which prevents the UK from crashing out on 31 October by mistake if something goes wrong during the passage of the implementing legislation”.

Three years after Britain voted 52-48 per cent to leave the European project, Johnson struck a divorce deal with the bloc in Brussels on Thursday.

Earlier, former prime minister Theresa May, whose Brexit deal was rejected by Parliament three times, said she was backing the agreement struck by Johnson.

May told lawmakers she had a “distinct sense of déjà vu” as parliament debated whether to back Johnson’s deal. She resigned in frustration after lawmakers repeatedly threw out her Brexit agreement.

Johnson’s deal is similar to May’s in some ways but contains a different arrangement for maintaining an open Irish border.
May said Parliament should pass the deal and let Britain leave the EU on October 31. She said “people want certainty in their lives … If you want this country to move forward then vote for the deal today”.

As lawmakers debated inside, tens of thousands of anti-Brexit demonstrators descended on London to march to Parliament Square, demanding a new referendum on whether Britain should leave the EU or remain. Protesters, many wearing blue berets emblazoned with yellow stars symbolising the EU flag, poured out of trains and buses for the last-ditch protest effort.

In one side street, a group of demonstrators with bells strapped to their legs and wielding sticks performed a traditional English morris dance and chanted: “Morris, not Boris!” to cheers from onlookers.

One of the dancers, Kate Fisher, said “demos that are fun and joyful are more effective”.

Elsewhere, the mood was less cheerful. Sarah Spoor, who cares for her two children with disabilities, choked back tears as she said she is “distraught” at the prospect of Britain leaving the EU.