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”.

Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Show all 5 1 /5 Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Made-up quote for The Times Johnson was sacked from The Times newspaper in the late 1980s after he fabricated a quote from his godfather, the historian Colin Lucas, for a front-page article about the discovery of Edward II’s Rose Palace. “The trouble was that somewhere in my copy I managed to attribute to Colin the view that Edward II and Piers Gaveston would have been cavorting together in the Rose Palace,” he claimed. Alas, Gaveston was executed 13 years before the palace was built. “It was very nasty,” Mr Johnson added, before attempting to downplay it as nothing more than a schoolboy blunder. PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Sacked from cabinet over cheating lie Michael Howard gave Boris Johnson two new jobs after becoming leader of the Conservatives in 2003 – party vice-chairman and shadow arts minister. He was sacked from both positions in November 2004 after assuring Mr Howard that tabloid reports of his affair with Spectator columnist Petronella Wyatt were false and an “inverted pyramid of piffle”. When the story was found to be true, he refused to resign. PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Broken promise to boss In 1999 Johnson was offered editorship of The Spectator by owner Conrad Black on the condition that he would not stand as an MP while in the post. In 2001 he stood - and was elected - MP for Henley, though Black did allow him to continue as editor despite calling "ineffably duplicitous" PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson Misrepresenting the people of Liverpool As editor of The Spectator, he was forced to apologise for an article in the magazine which blamed drunken Liverpool fans for the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and suggested that the people of the city were wallowing in their victim status. “Anyone, journalist or politician, should say sorry to the people of Liverpool – as I do – for misrepresenting what happened at Hillsborough,” he said. PA Biggest lies told by Boris Johnson ‘I didn’t say anything about Turkey’ Johnson claimed in January, that he did not mention Turkey during the EU referendum campaign. In fact, he co-signed a letter stating that “the only way to avoid having common borders with Turkey is to vote Leave and take back control”. The Vote Leave campaign also produced a poster reading: “Turkey (population 76 million) is joining the EU”

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.