Angry MPs led by Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer have demanded to know why ministers are refusing to publish the government’s full legal advice relating to Theresa May’s Brexit deal in an emergency Commons debate.

The shadow Brexit secretary accused the government of “showing contempt for this house” and said the government’s counter-offer of sending the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, to answer questions on Monday was not good enough.

Robert Buckland, the solicitor general and Cox’s deputy, said the attorney general would answer questions “in the fullest possible way” and accused Starmer and other critics of manufacturing “a wholly confected controversy”.

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Labour will consider its next steps as ministers continue to defy a resolution by the Commons on 13 November to publish the full legal advice on the Brexit deal negotiated by May.

The government was defeated in the chamber that day after the DUP made clear it would vote with Labour to demand full publication, prompting the Tory whips to tell their party’s MPs to abstain.

Minutes earlier, the opposition parties had rejected a compromise proposal made by David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, at the dispatch box to publish a full legal analysis, rather than the entire text seen by cabinet ministers.

Some cabinet sources say that the full legal advice is frank and uncompromising in places, and in particular makes clear the mutual exit mechanism negotiated by May to the controversial Northern Irish backstop is a fig leaf, and that in reality the EU in effect has a veto on whether the UK can abandon it. No 10 denies that is the case.

Nigel Dodds, the DUP’s leader in Westminster, said Buckland was merely “repeating the offer made during the debate” by Lidington that “was not accepted by the house”. He asked: “Why doesn’t the solicitor general start listening?” and added: “What is it that they have to hide?”

Several backbench Conservatives lined up to support Buckland, with Simon Hoare saying it was “wholly irresponsible to publish material that could and would damage the national interests”.

Victoria Prentis, another backbench Tory, asked Buckland what the difference was between the current situation and the situation at the time of the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

At that time a summary of the legal advice, which was fairly supportive of the idea of intervention, was published in the run-up to the vote on the invasion. Two years later in the run-up to the 2005 general election, the full legal advice leaked, which was more neutral.

Replying to Prentis, Buckland said: “Extracts leaked to the press during the 2005 campaign. In those exceptional circumstances, the then Labour government published the full legal advice. I do not see that as a precedent for this.”

Later, in response to the Labour MP, Diana Johnson, Buckland said the Iraq war was a decision “whether or not to use armed force in another country” where legality was “a material and key issue”. Brexit, he said, was different because it amounted to “government taking a policy decision, based on a range of outcomes”.