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Gordon Brown Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

Severin Carrell has more on Gordon Brown’s claim that the European Union will offer to withdraw 31 October for leaving the bloc, to “pull the rug” from under hardline Brexiteers.

Speaking in Edinburgh on Friday morning, Brown said he had been speaking to EU leaders and understood that President Emmanuel Macron of France no longer insisted the UK should be held to that date. Brown claimed Macron had originally insisted on it chiefly to “sound tough” during the European election campaign.

Speaking at the launch of a new think tank Our Scottish Future, Brown said he accepted EU leaders could not unilaterally withdraw the deadline but were poised to say they would extend it if asked, adding to pressure on Boris Johnson to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

“I have actually been talking to some European leaders this week. I believe that next week the European Union will withdraw the October 31st deadline and remove the excuse that Boris Johnson has, and the claim that he’s making, that it’s the European Union being inflexible in their timing, and make it possible for MPs to vote [against] no-deal Brexit.”

His remarks were met with incredulity in Brussels, since there has been no discussion of that strategy at all; it was not on the radar. One official there described them as “bizarre”. The EU requires unanimity of all 27 member states on such a change – a process which involves heads of government involvement, and the UK’s agreement to it.

During a question and answer session, Brown went further: “My information is that Macron no longer holds to that deadline. It was really introduced for his campaign in the European elections to make him sound tough.

“And none of the other European commissioners, including the new president of the European Commission [Ursula von der Leyen], I believe will hold to that October 31st deadline.

“So really the government has two arguments that they want to get across - that it’s a sovereign people against a non-sovereign parliament, and it’s Britain against Europe. Pull the rug from under that argument by saying it’s not Europe that’s being inflexible, it’s up to Britain now, the October 31st deadline can be removed.”