Brexit: Peers launch fresh bid to stop Boris Johnson suspending parliament to force no-deal

Peers in the House of Lords have launched a fresh bid to stop Boris Johnson suspending parliament to force through a no-deal Brexit.

An amendment to Northern Ireland legislation put forward by a cross-party group of peers for debate next week would force Theresa May’s successor as prime minister to provide MPs with an opportunity to vote in the Commons in the days running up to the Brexit deadline of 31 October.

Those votes could be used by MPs to try to stop Mr Johnson – or his rival for the Tory leadership Jeremy Hunt – from crashing the UK out of the EU without a withdrawal agreement.

Mr Johnson has refused to rule out using a mechanism known as “prorogation” to ask the Queen to shut parliament down in the autumn, to avoid the likelihood that MPs would vote to stop him steering the country over the no-deal cliff.

Former prime minister Sir John Major has warned he will take legal action to stop what he regards as a “constitutional outrage”.

But an attempt to see off the threat of prorogation was thwarted in the Commons earlier this week, when measures put forward by former attorney general Dominic Grieve which would have required the House to sit in the autumn did not win the support of MPs.

The only amendment which Mr Grieve managed to secure, by a single vote, was a requirement for the government to provide fortnightly reports during the autumn on the progress of talks to restore power-sharing institutions in Northern Ireland.

Peers led by Tory former minister Lord Hailsham have seized on this provision to try to ensure that the Commons sits in October.

Under the terms of their amendment, ministers will have to table a motion for debate in both Houses of Parliament within five calendar days of the publication of each fortnightly report.

The “neutral motion” would simply state that the House “noted” the report, but crucially it is believed that MPs would be able to amend it to force a vote on a no-deal Brexit.

As the Grieve amendment requires the first report to be made on or before 9 October, the new provision – if approved – would require at least two government motions before Halloween.

Alongside Lord Hailsham, the proposals are backed by Labour’s former attorney general Lord Goldsmith, the Liberal Democrat leader in the Upper House Lord Newby and former official reviewer of counter-terror legislation Lord Anderson.

If selected by the Lord Speaker, it will be debated in the House of Lords on Monday, and is expected to clear the Upper House on Wednesday with the backing of a majority of peers.

The government will then have a chance to kill the measure off in the Commons on Thursday, when Lords amendments to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation) Bill are put to the vote.