BORIS Johnson’s most senior adviser has claimed MPs are now too late to stop a no-deal Brexit.

According to reports, Dominic Cummings told ministers and officials that Britain will be out of Europe on October 31 even if opposition parties and Tory rebels successfully call a vote on no-confidence in the fledgling Prime Minister.

Over the weekend, the SNP’s Ian Blackford called for an urgent cross-party summit “to prevent the Prime Minister destroying the livelihoods of citizens across the UK, and move forward with efforts to take no-deal off the table.”

But the Prime Minister’s defacto Chief-of-Staff has made clear that he thinks there’s little can be done by MPs.

Cummings told ministers that only chance to stop a no deal Brexit has passed.

Because Jeremy Corbyn did not table a vote of no-confidence in Johnson’s government ahead of parliament stopping for summer recess, then the earlier they can do it is on September 5.

Even if they are successful, Cummings believes the Prime Minister would have the power to schedule the poll for after Brexit day.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, in one meeting, Cummings warned that EU leaders such as Emmanuel Macron, the French president, “think we’re bluffing” or believe that “MPs will cancel the referendum”.

“They don’t realise that if there is a no-confidence vote in September or October, we’ll call an election for after the 31st and leave anyway,” he said.

Cummings instructed staff to prepare for a no-deal exit on the basis that EU leaders “won’t realise the Prime Minister is not bluffing until October” when it could be “too late”.

He is understood to have said that meetings of the new “XO” daily operations committee, part of the Brexit war cabinet, had made him “less worried” about a no-deal than before his arrival in Downing Street.

Addressing Downing Street communications staff on Thursday, Cummings insisted the Prime Minister expected the EU to completely “abolish” the Irish backstop – the safety net intended to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

He instructed officials to communicate the message that the EU wants to “control our laws and taxes forever” after Brexit rather than simply referring to “the backstop”.

Cummings told No 10 staff: “Everybody will have to pick a side. And the people will see we are on their side.”

One official said Cummings had insisted that they should plan on the basis that the EU would prefer a no deal exit rather than “abandoning their grip” over the UK, “even when they realise we are not bluffing.

If Jeremy Corbyn tables a motion of no confidence in the Government under the 2011 Fixed term Parliaments Act when Parliament returns next month then it could be debated and voted on the next day.

If Johnson loses, he has 14 days to form a new government win a new vote of MPs.

If he then fails to win that new vote, he would have to call a general election.

However, according to a House of Commons library paper, the Fixed Terms Act give the Prime Minister “broad legal discretion” about when the poll should take place.

Parliament would need to be dissolved 25 working days before the date of the election, meaning MPs would be unable to bring motions and amendments intended to delay or prevent Brexit.

Johnson could effectively decide when that five week process is triggered – allowing him to ensure Parliament is not sitting in the days leading up to Oct 31.

In an interview on Sky, Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth said other mechanisms would be available to MPs in the autumn.

“Let’s see what happens in September,” he said. “Because the government will have to bring forward appropriate legislation to prepare for this Brexit no-deal exit that they want.

“And we will use all the means available to us, working across the parties – because we know there are plenty of Tory MPs who want to block no deal as well, particularly a lot of those who Boris Johnson, perhaps rather foolishly in retrospect, sacked from the cabinet two weeks ago.

“We’re working with MPs across the House of Commons, and we will work to stop no deal.”

Remain supporting Tory MP Dominic Grieve told the BBC that Cummings was a “master of misinformation” and was “missing the point.”

Grieve – a former attorney general – told Radio 4’s Broadcasting House programme: “There are a number of things which the House of Commons can do, including bringing down the government [via a vote of no confidence] and setting up a new government in its place.”

This arrangement – known as a government of national unity – would involve a cabinet made up of MPs from multiple parties.

However, for that to happen it’s thought Johnson would need to resign as Prime Minister, something he is not legally bound to do.

Catherine Haddon, from the Institute for Government told the BBC: “The problem there is it requires the sitting prime minister to resign, and because it is untested territory we don’t know how that might work.

“If you go back over history, certainly when governments have lost confidence that’s been the presumption – but the other presumption has been that if they wanted to go to the people they could.

“He could say: ‘No, I’m staying as prime minister and we’re having a general election.’”

In his letter to the opposition leaders Blackford asks them to combine efforts. He writes: “It is becoming increasingly clear that the possibility of a no-deal Brexit has increased with the new Prime Minister failing to rule it out with just three months to go before the revised Brexit date.”