Boris Johnson has announced that he will ask parliament to support plans for a snap October general election after suffering a humiliating defeat in his first House of Commons vote as prime minister.

Former cabinet ministers including Philip Hammond and David Gauke were among 21 Conservative rebels who banded together with opposition MPs to seize control of the parliamentary timetable on a dramatic day in Westminster.

The move was aimed at paving the way for a bill tabled by the Labour backbencher Hilary Benn, which is designed to block a no-deal Brexit by forcing the prime minister to request an extension to article 50 if he cannot strike a reworked deal with the EU27.

Q&A Who were the 21 rebel Tories? Show Hide Here is the list of the 21 Conservative MPs who voted with the opposition and against the government to seize control of the parliamentary timetable in order to pave the way for a bill to block a no-deal Brexit. They were then thrown out of the party by prime minister Boris Johnson. Guto Bebb, Aberconwy Richard Benyon, Newbury Steve Brine, Winchester Alistair Burt, North East Bedfordshire Greg Clark, Tunbridge Wells Kenneth Clarke, Rushcliffe David Gauke, South West Hertfordshire Justine Greening, Putney Dominic Grieve, Beaconsfield Sam Gyimah, East Surrey Philip Hammond, Runnymede and Weybridge Stephen Hammond, Wimbledon Richard Harrington, Watford Margot James, Stourbridge Sir Oliver Letwin, West Dorset Anne Milton, Guildford Caroline Nokes, Romsey and Southampton North Antoinette Sandbach, Eddisbury Sir Nicholas Soames, Mid Sussex Rory Stewart, Penrith and The Border Edward Vaizey, Wantage



Johnson lost the vote by 328 to 301, a convincing majority of 27 for the rebels.

The PM had earlier described the legislation, drawn up by a cross-party coalition including the senior Tories Oliver Letwin and Dominic Grieve, as “Jeremy Corbyn’s surrender bill”.

After his defeat, Johnson said he would never request the delay mandated in the rebels’ bill, which he said would “hand control of the negotiations to the EU”.

If MPs passed the bill on Wednesday, he said, “the people of this country will have to choose” in an election that he would seek to schedule for 15 October.

The prime minister will need a two-thirds majority to secure a general election under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, and Jeremy Corbyn quickly made clear his party would not vote for the motion unless and until the anti no-deal bill had passed.

Play Video 0:41 MPs vote to seize control of the Commons and force vote on Brexit delay – video

“Get the bill through first in order to take no deal off the table,” the Labour leader said.

The rebels hope to push the legislation through all its parliamentary stages by the end of the week – though they face a fierce battle in the Lords, where scores of Conservative peers are lining up to table wrecking amendments.

Johnson held a series of meetings with potential rebels on Tuesday seeking to reassure them he was determined to strike a fresh Brexit deal with the EU27 and that MPs would be given plenty of time to debate and approve it.

But several Tories appear to have been emboldened rather than deterred by the threat of losing the party whip for the remainder of the parliament – and by Johnson’s decision last week to suspend parliament.

They expressed concerns about Johnson’s failure to show any evidence of concrete progress in the negotiations with the EU27.

Hammond, Gauke and the former secretary of state for international development Rory Stewart were among the rebels, as was the veteran MP (and Winston Churchill’s grandson) Nicholas Soames. All were later phoned in turn and told they had lost the Conservative whip.

Rebel Kenneth Clarke told BBC’s Newsnight he no longer recognised the Conservative party, calling it “the Brexit party, rebadged”. He added: “It’s been taken over by a rather knockabout sort of character, who’s got this bizarre crash-it-through philosophy ... a cabinet which is the most rightwing cabinet any Conservative party has ever produced.”

Q&A How does the Fixed-term Parliaments Act work? Show Hide Introduced by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, the act set in place five-year, fixed-term parliaments with elections to be held on the first Thursday in May in 2015, 2020, 2025 and so on.

In theory, the act makes the calling of any general election outside this term the decision of the House of Commons, not the prime minister. A vote by at least two-thirds of the Commons in favour of an early general election would formally fire the starting gun on the process – the input of the House of Lords is not required. The act also provides for an early poll if a majority of MPs pass a vote of no confidence in the government and no new government is formed within the following 14 days.

Ed Vaizey, the former culture minister, said he felt liberated by his decision to rebel. “When you hear those speeches in the House of Commons by Antoinette Sandbach and Ken Clarke, you just know you are on the right side,” he said.

A source close to the rebels said last night: “Tonight’s decisive result is the first step in a process to avert an undemocratic and damaging no deal. No 10 has responded by removing the whip from two former chancellors, a former lord chancellor and Winston Churchill’s grandson. What has happened to the Conservative party?”

A number of the party’s leading centrist voices, including Justine Greening, Soames and Alistair Burt, announced on Tuesday they would stand down at the next election.

Hammond, who less than six months ago was delivering his spring statement as chancellor, had said on Tuesday morning he was ready for the “fight of a lifetime” to hold his place in the Conservative party.

“I am going to defend my party against incomers, entryists, who are trying to turn it from a broad church to a narrow faction,” he said.

In a thinly veiled swipe at the prime minister’s chief strategist, Dominic Cummings, who is not a Conservative member, he said: “People who are at the heart of this government, who are probably not even members of the Conservative party, care nothing about the future of the Conservatives and I intend to defend my party against them.”

The Tory MP Phillip Lee took the more radical step of crossing the floor of the Commons to join the Liberal Democrats, removing the PM’s majority just as Johnson prepared to address MPs about last week’s G7 meeting.

Johnson’s G7 statement was just his second appearance at the dispatch box in parliament since he became prime minister in July. Addressing a raucous House of Commons, the PM claimed the motion drawn up by the cross-party coalition was “without precedent in our history” and would “destroy any chance of negotiation”.

He said: “There is only one way to describe the bill: it is Jeremy Corbyn’s surrender bill. That is what it is. It means running up the white flag. The bill is shameful.

“I want to make it clear to everybody in this house: there are no circumstances in which I will ever accept anything like it. I will never surrender the control of our negotiations in the way that the leader of the opposition is demanding.”

Corbyn said the measure was “a last chance to stop this government riding roughshod over constitutional and democratic rights in this country, so that a cabal in Downing Street cannot crash us out without a deal, without any democratic mandate and against the majority of public opinion.

“The prime minister is not winning friends in Europe; he is losing friends at home. His is a government with no mandate, no morals and, as of today, no majority,” he said.

Lee’s defection to the Lib Dems came after two moderate Tory former ministers, Justine Greening and Alistair Burt, said they would step down from parliament at the next general election.

Lee, in his resignation letter, said the Brexit process had transformed his “once great party” into “something more akin to a narrow faction”.

The Guardian view on Boris Johnson’s strategy: split party, divide country, win election | Editorial Read more

While some of those MPs supporting the rebels’ motion on Tuesday want to block Brexit, others would like to leave the EU with a deal.

A group of Labour MPs, including Stephen Kinnock and Gloria De Piero, plan to table two amendments to Wednesday’s bill, calling for the Brexit delay to be used to secure a deal – and a vote to be held on Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement – including the last-ditch concessions she made shortly before she was forced to resign.

Urging MPs to support the rebel motion on Tuesday, Letwin said that due to the imminent suspension of parliament, this was the final opportunity for MPs to legislate and have that legislation “enforced on a reluctant government”.

The West Dorset MP said Johnson’s threat of a no-deal Brexit appeared to mean “if they do not do what he wishes, he will throw himself into the abyss”.

Asked via an intervention whether the plan to delay Brexit until at least 31 January would not simply create confusion, Letwin said it was the best option on offer.

“It’s to provide the government with the time to seek to solve this problem and to enable parliament to help to resolve an issue which has proved very difficult,” he said. “I don’t say it’s easy to do by 31 January, but I’m sure that it will not be done by 31 October. We are between a rock and a hard place, and in this instance the hard place is better than the rock. It is as simple as that. It’s decision time.

“If honourable members across the house want to prevent a no-deal exit on 31 October, they will have the opportunity to do so if, but only if they vote for this motion this evening. I hope they will do so.”