UK: 'I'd rather be dead in a ditch' - Johnson on asking for Brexit delay

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that he would "rather be dead in a ditch" then ask for another Brexit extension from the EU, while giving a speech in Wakefield on Thursday.

Commenting on the ongoing attempts to pass a bill to block a no-deal Brexit in the UK's Parliament, the Prime Minister said that "unfortunately Parliament voted yesterday effectively to scupper our negotiating power and to make much more difficult for this government to get a deal."

"I really don't see how we can have a situation in which the British ability to negotiate is absolutely torpedoed by Parliament in this way, with powers of the British people handed over to Brussels, so that we can be kept incarcerated in the EU without that actually being put to the people in the form a vote," he added.

Johnson also addressed the announcement by his brother Jo Johnson that he intends to resign from the Cabinet and stand down as an MP, citing an "unresolvable tension" between "family loyalty and the national interest."

"Jo doesn't agree with me about the European Union because it's an issue that obviously divides families and divides everybody, but I think what Jo would agree is that we need to get on and sort this thing out," he said.

Johnson speech comes at a time when the no-deal bill is being discussed in the House of Lords, where if it passes all the stages, it will return to the House of Commons on Monday when MPs will vote the bill to the next stage of 'Royal assent' when it would become law.