A letter expected to be issued by the EU to the UK government detailing reassurances on the Irish border backstop changes nothing, the DUP has said.

The letter is likely to state that the backstop is not the EU's preferred solution to avoiding a hard border.

It will also say that the backstop does not undermine the Good Friday Agreement, or "annex" Northern Ireland.

But speaking on the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme, the DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds said: "When the Prime Minister delayed the vote in December, she said she was going to get legally binding reassurances. A letter certainly isn't legally binding."

• Q&A: The Irish border Brexit backstop

Spain's Foreign Minister Josep Borrell has told a press conference in Madrid he hopes the UK can avoid leaving the EU without a deal.

"A hard Brexit would be a catastrophe for everyone," he said.

Mr Borrell added, however, that the UK's bilateral agreements with Spain over Gibraltar would remain in place even in such an eventuality.

Image source, Getty Images

Hundreds of so-called Brexit survival kits costing almost £300 are being sold ahead of the UK leaving the EU.

The packs include enough freeze-dried food to last 30 days, a water filter and fire starting gel.

Economists at ING are braced for a volatile week for sterling.

They are now operating on the "base case" that the government will extend Article 50 - although not immediately after the key vote in Parliament tomorrow.

"Although sterling started moving last week on rumours of Article 50 being extended, we note that events this week may tame such expectations somewhat," a spokesman said.

"Although an eventual Article 50 extension is now our base case, we see it as likely, that after losing the vote on the Brexit deal tomorrow, Prime Minister Theresa May will not immediately suggest extending Article 50, but instead may intend to bring back an enhanced version of the deal aiming to receive more assurances from the EU."

Any extension would be "sterling positive" - that is the pound would rise.

Image source, Getty Images

Uncertainty in Westminster is leading to concerns around the country...

Once a critic of the withdrawal agreement, Tory Brexiteer and backbencher Andrew Murrison declared his support for the Prime Minister over the weekend.

This morning the former minister tabled an amendment to the Brexit motion. He wants to create a "sunset clause" preventing the backstop extending beyond the end of 2022.

The amendment backs Theresa May's deal, subject to a legal codicil to the withdrawal agreement which states that the backstop must end by December 31 2022.

The South West Wiltshire MP said: "It is important in my opinion that we understand the backstop is not needed to ensure the absence of a hard border in Northern Ireland".

Feeling a little lost on Brexit? Never really got your head around it in the first place? Don't know what this Tuesday's vote is all about?

Let us walk you through it with a really simple guide.

Image source, Gett

In her speech to factory workers later, the PM is expected to stress the importance of following through on the result of the referendum.

She will give the example of the Welsh devolution referendum in 1997, when people voted by a margin of 0.3% to create the Welsh Assembly, arguing: "That result was accepted by both sides and the popular legitimacy of that institution has never seriously been questioned."

But records show Mrs May did in fact herself vote against, external the establishment of the Welsh Assembly after that referendum - while the 2005 Conservative manifesto pledged to offer the Welsh people a "referendum on whether to keep the Assembly in its current form, increase its powers or abolish it".

This probably isn't going the way Nick Boles hoped...

Four Conservative Brexiteer MPs who have been critics of the withdrawal agreement have now said they will support the government in the vote on Tuesday.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, MP for the Cotswolds, said he still had "deep misgivings" about many aspects of Mrs May's deal.

But he said: "The events of last week have clearly demonstrated that the Speaker and MPs who wish to remain in the EU will stop at nothing to prevent that happening."

Former Public Accounts Committee chairman Sir Edward Leigh said Brexit-supporting MPs were "playing with fire" if they voted down the deal.

Andrew Murrison, a former minister, and Caroline Johnson, MP for Sleaford and North Hykeham, also said they were backing the government despite reservations.

LBC

"I think, possibly, some colleagues are being scared by this idea that there might be no Brexit as a result of voting it down", Conservative MP Boris Johnson told LBC Radio.

"I think that's nonsense. Britain will leave in March, absolutely, and that's the bottom line," he added.

Mr Johnson said he didn't think any moves by MPs plotting to hamper the deal would come off. He said: "I notice all this stuff about complicated jiggery-pokery for parliament to frustrate the deal.

"I don't think that really can be done. I think that we are really playing with fire".

He added: "I think that people will feel betrayed. And I think they will feel that there has been a great conspiracy by the deep state of the UK, the people who really run the country."

Laura Kuenssberg
BBC political editor

I know that, right here, I've been writing about, and we've been discussing, our prime minister's and politicians' Brexit choices for more than two-and-a-half years.

And, yes indeed, there have been many, many times we have reported it is a crunch moment, a crucial day, or a vital moment.

And each mini-drama, each bizarre twist, each day where we have moved further from anything like politics-as-usual, has had meaning.

That's true of the prime minister's speech in Florence, the meltingly hot cabinet day out at Chequers, Boris Johnson stalking out of the cabinet, or indeed, the EU saying "non, non, non" at Salzburg, or Gina Miller's Supreme Court appeal, where on Parliament's behalf - on behalf of all of us in a sense - she won a bigger say over Brexit for MPs.

Barring an almost incredible-to-imagine second delay to the vote, Tuesday is when MPs get the chance to express that wish - to say yes or no to the deal that's on the table.

The weird thing about it is that unless, again, something almost impossible-to-ponder happens, we know they are, in large numbers, going to say no.

So, what will happen at that point?

Continue reading Laura's blog here...

Labour MP Sir Kevin Barron has declared he will back Theresa May's Brexit deal, warning the referendum result must be respected or the party will face "dire" consequences at the ballot box.

Writing in the Times, external, Sir Kevin said the PM's deal is the only option on the table that "truly enacts the promises that I made to my constituents and avoids the horror of a no-deal Brexit".

In a swipe at MPs campaigning for a further referendum if Mrs May's deal falls, the veteran MP, who backed Remain in 2016, said it "truly saddens me that so many in the Commons are trying to overturn the decision".

Image source, UK Parliament

Today Programme
BBC Radio 4

A vote of no confidence in Theresa May is inevitable says the Shadow Chancellor. "It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when," Labour's John McDonnell told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme.

But he said, Labour will be listening "very, very carefully" to the PM's speech and the following debate. "Let's watch the balance of forces within parliament itself," he said.

"I can't predict anything in parliament at the moment," He added: "It's just so unpredictable...All these allegations about a coup, and plotting etcetera. I actually think it is parliament at it's best. Individual MPs are behaving properly, they're listening to their constituents, they're exercising their own judgements about the interests of their constituencies and the good of the country and they are coming to decisions - based upon not party advantage, not individual career moves but actually what is best for the people they represent.

"It's forcing the government to actually not take parliament for granted any more, it's redressing some of the imbalance between the executive and parliament that as built up over decades."

Former attorney general Dominic Grieve has contradicted Liam Fox over a no-deal Brexit.

Pro-EU MP Mr Grieve, who is leading efforts to avoid leaving the EU without a deal, told Today: "It would be national suicide. It will lead to the break up of the UK for starters. That seems to me to be a pretty clear indication of a form of national suicide.

"The economic damage which it will do to us will be immense, so that the most vulnerable in our society will be those who suffer most as a consequence.

"If you are going to head to a position where you are going to have an 8% cut probably in your GDP - which is a major recession - it is those with least in our society who will suffer most.

"I'm not prepared to see that happening."

Nick Boles outlined his Brexit "compromise" plan on the Today programme this morning, but has it already hit a snag?

Monday's newspapers are - unsurprisingly - dominated by the Brexit debate. Mrs May's speech features on the front page of the Times, Financial Times and Metro.

The Sun and Daily Express - both of which backed the Leave campaign - tell their readers there is now just "24 hours to save Brexit".

The Daily Mail, meanwhile, splashes on what it says is a "Brexit coup" from "pro-EU MPs", who plan to "seize control of Brexit" via the liaison committee.

The Guardian says the EU is making preparations to "delay Brexit".

Read more from Monday's papers here.

Three senior Conservative backbenchers are to publish a bill on Monday night that would allow MPs to frame a "compromise" Brexit deal if Mrs May fails to come up with a plan B, Tory Nick Boles has told the BBC.

Mr Boles said he, Sir Oliver Letwin and Nicky Morgan were behind the "European Union Withdrawal Number 2 Bill", which would see the Liaison Committee - made up of the chairmen and chairwomen of all the Commons select committees - take a key role if the PM's Withdrawal Agreement is rejected by Parliament.

Mr Boles said all three planned to vote for the PM's deal, but would act if it failed.

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "This bill would do the following: it would give the Government three more weeks to get a compromise deal, a plan B, through Parliament so that we are leaving the EU on time on March 29 with a deal.

"If that failed, it would... give the Liaison Committee the responsibility to try and come up with its own compromise deal, which would have to go back to the House for a vote.

"If the House passed that compromise deal, then the Government would be legally required to implement whatever it was that they had."

Speaking to BBC Breakfast, Labour MP Chuka Umunna, who is campaigning for another referendum, said Mrs May's deal would do "great harm to our economy".

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable - who opposes Brexit - said: "The increasingly desperate language from the prime minister more than suggests a great deal of panic.

"But she cannot be allowed to pull the wool over the public's eyes. A chaotic no-deal Brexit is a choice and it is in the gift of the government to prevent it."

Meanwhile, Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay warned "those on the Brexiteer side seeking ideological purity" that by voting down Mrs May's deal that they risked "leaving the door ajar to ways that increase the risk to Brexit".

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has said his party will vote against the deal tomorrow - and would start moves to trigger a general election if it is voted down.

On Sunday, he told the BBC's Andrew Marr what his priorities would be if he was in charge of Brexit negotiations.