UK will leave EU by October 31 despite Commons setback insists Michael Gove

Michael Gove has insisted the UK will leave the EU by October 31 despite the Government asking the EU for a delay.

After suffering an embarrassing defeat in the Commons over his Brexit plans on Saturday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson got a senior diplomat to send an unsigned photocopy of a letter asking for an extension.

In a second note to European Council president Donald Tusk, the PM said the delay requested would be “deeply corrosive”.

Asked if he could guarantee that the UK would leave the EU by Halloween, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said: “Yes, that’s our determined policy. We know that the EU want us to leave, we know that we have a deal that allows us to leave.”

Mr Gove told Sky News’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday: “We are going to leave by October 31st. We have the means and the ability to do so and people who – yesterday we had some people who voted for delay, voted explicitly to try to frustrate this process and to drag it out.

“I think actually the mood in the country is clear and the Prime Minister’s determination is absolute and I am with him in this, we must leave by October 31st.”

Mr Johnson had been legally required to send the letter and stressed to Brussels he was only sending it at Parliament’s bidding.