Labour has lost an attempt to block the possibility of any new prime minister forcing through a no-deal Brexit against MPs' wishes.

It came as Sajid Javid had a pointed dig at Boris Johnson as they launched rival Tory leadership campaigns, saying the former foreign secretary was "yesterday's news".

The home secretary positioned himself as a "new kind of leader", after Mr Johnson had pledged to end the Brexit "disillusion and despair" by taking the UK out of the EU on 31 October with or without a deal.

A shock poll suggested the Tory front-runner would win a general election landslide as prime minister.

The ComRes survey for the Daily Telegraph – which pays the former foreign secretary £275,000 for a weekly column – said Mr Johnson’s Tories would win 37 per cent of the vote, which the paper claimed would translate to a 140-seat majority following analysis by the Electoral Calculus website.