The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Spectator journalist Katy Balls says she is "sceptical we're on the brink of a Brexit deal being passed before 31 October".

"If you speak to various members in government, I don't think there is great sense of optimism - there is a sense that both sides are still quite far apart.

"Listening to Boris Johnson's speech, it seemed very focused on rallying cries and getting people ready for general election, rather than how you pass a Brexit deal."

Image source, Reuters

David Frost, the PM's Brexit envoy, has arrived at the European Commission's headquarters in Brussels.

Was he carrying the much-awaited letter outlining the UK's new terms?

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Image source, PA

Stephen Hammond was a Conservative MP until he, along with 20 other MPs, was expelled from the parliamentary party for voting in favour of the Benn Act which seeks to block a no-deal Brexit.

He says "there is the basis" for getting the PM's deal through the Commons.

He adds that the "vast bulk" of those MPs who were expelled would support the plan because they want to avoid a no-deal.

On that theme, Health Secretary Matt Hancock tells the BBC it would be "very, very sensible" for MPs to back any agreement to end "three years" of impasse.

He praises Boris Johnson's "optimistic, energising" speech and hopes the EU will consider the details of his new Brexit offer "in the spirit of compromise".

Plenty of Conservative MPs - including Theresa May - chose to be in Parliament for PMQs rather than in Manchester for Boris Johnson's speech.

But those MPs who were there, perhaps unsurprisingly, have given it their thumbs up - one even describing the PM as a "hero" for his emphatic Brexit message.

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Labour MP Gareth Snell says if the EU believes the PM's plan is "practicable and achievable" there is "no reason the House of Commons shouldn't support that".

However he says if the deal doesn't work due to the existence of customs checks in Northern Ireland "then we will probably have to dust off the withdrawal agreement deal" again.

The withdrawal agreement was the exit deal reached by ex-PM Theresa May with the EU but rejected by MPs.

Mr Snell says: "If the PM wants to leave by 31 October he is going to have to realise his options are relatively limited."

Image source, PA Media

One interesting footnote from the PM's speech is that there appears to have been no policy announcements in it whatsoever.

The closest he came to committing to something new was backing Andy Street’s plan for a West Midlands Metro but he had already expressed support for the mayor's idea during the leadership campaign.

Jeremy Corbyn's own conference speech last week was also largely devoid of new policies, although there was a plan to set up a publicly-owned drugs company to produce cheap version of patented medicines.

Do their broad-brush themes and lack of firm commitments signal we're heading for an autumn election? Many commentators think so.

The World at One
BBC Radio 4

Pat Leahy, political editor of the Irish Times, says there is a sense that "neither Dublin or EU are going to reject these proposals outright."

"I think that is more for tactical reasons rather than from any sense the proposals could form a workable alternative to the backstop," he tells Radio 4's World at One.

"We haven’t had an official response yet from the Irish government - that will have to wait until the full detail is conveyed by the British government.

"The sense I get is anything that has checks would probably not be acceptable to Dublin."

He says Brussels and Dublin might choose not to agree a deal but "wait and see what happens in Westminster, see if Parliament can block a no-deal - which it thinks it can - and see what happens when there is an election."

BBC Politics Live
BBC2's lunchtime political programme

Liz Truss dismisses claims by Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage that the new Brexit offer is a "reheated" version of Theresa May's withdrawal agreement.

Although people will have to wait to see the detail, the international trade secretary says there is a "new" approach to the backstop.

She is adamant that the PM wants to scrap the backstop and would not accept a "time limit" on the current fallback arrangement as a compromise.

Here is part of Katya Adler's take on the PM's speech and what the BBC Europe editor thinks the EU's likely response will be to the UK's new proposals.

Some more reaction to Mr Johnson's speech, this time from business.

The Institute of Directors said it dearly hoped there was space for a Brexit deal but the UK was "running out of road".

It warned against a purely technical solution to minimising friction on the Irish border, suggesting that steps to avoid a hard border "can't put the compliance burden so high on businesses that it aggravates the existing challenges while creating a whole new set of problems".

On the domestic front, the lobby group welcomed some deregulatory steps announced by ministers in Manchester but said the fact remained that too many firms still felt that "government-imposed costs are still piling up".

BBC Radio 5 Live

We haven't seen the government's new Brexit proposals in full yet but the Lib Dems have already dismissed them as "botched".

Jo Swinson's party says the PM's speech was full of "empty words" and showed his true intent was to leave the EU without any agreement.

The Lib Dems, who say they will revoke Article 50 and cancel Brexit if they win power, repeated their view that EU membership was the best deal on offer.

Labour's John McDonnell says Boris Johnson's Tory conference speech was "full of content-less bluster" and the country is no clearer about what the PM's Brexit solution is.

The shadow chancellor says there was nothing in the speech beyond the leaked reports of recent days, proposals deemed unacceptable by Ireland and the EU.

"It might be that this is a cynical attempt to deal a no-deal," he tells the BBC.

House of Commons
Parliament

Labour's Sir Mark Hendrick accuses the government of "whipping up hatred and animosity" in the language it uses during the Brexit debate.

He says Theresa May created a "hostile atmosphere" for illegal immigrants, but ministers want to create an "even more hostile" climate for its Brexit critics by "invoking the language of war".

In reply, Dominic Raab says the government has apologised over "mistakes" made during the Windrush scandal.

He says the best way to overcome Brexit divisions is to "get Brexit done and move on".

PMQs has now come to an end in the Commons.

BBC Politics Live
BBC2's lunchtime political programme

Times journalist Matt Chorley says there was a lot of "happy clappy centrist stuff" in Mr Johnson's speech, for instance on the environment and prison rehabilitation.

He suggests the PM had eschewed much of right-wing rhetoric that has been on display this week, particularly on law and order.

But Liz Truss takes a rather different view, saying the PM made a full-throated defence of capitalism as the only way of raising living standards.

She suggests the PM is a "much more front-footed Conservative politician than Theresa May or David Cameron ever were."