* PM Johnson sends EU unsigned letter seeking Brexit delay
* Johnson also tells EU he does not want a delay
* Opposition say PM could end up in court
* Johnson: confident Brexit laws will pass by Oct. 31
(Recasts with Gove)
By Kylie MacLellan and Paul Sandle
LONDON, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Britain will leave the European
Union on Oct. 31 despite an unsigned letter that Prime Minister
Boris Johnson was forced by his opponents to send to the bloc
requesting a Brexit delay, the government said on Sunday.
The Brexit maelstrom has spun wildly in the past week
between the possibility of an orderly exit on Oct. 31 with a
deal that Johnson struck on Thursday and a delay after he was
forced to ask for an extension late on Saturday.
Johnson's defeat in the British parliament over the
sequencing of the ratification of his deal exposed the prime
minister to a law passed by his opponents demanding he request a
delay until Jan. 31.
Johnson insisted he did not want what he cast as a deeply
corrosive delay to Brexit beyond the Halloween deadline. One of
his most senior ministers said Britain would still leave the
bloc on Oct. 31.
"We are going to leave by October 31. We have the means and
the ability to do so," Michael Gove, the minister in charge of
no-deal Brexit preparations, told Sky News.
"That letter was sent because parliament required it to be
sent ... but parliament can't change the prime minister's mind,
parliament can't change the government's policy or
determination."
In an extraordinary step that indicates the extent of the
Brexit fever gripping the United Kingdom, Johnson sent three
letters to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council.
First, a brief cover note from Britain's EU envoy explaining
that the government was simply complying with the law; second,
an unsigned photocopy of the text that the law, known as the
Benn Act, forced him to write; and a third letter in which
Johnson said he did not want an extension.
"I have made clear since becoming Prime Minister and made
clear to parliament again today, my view, and the Government's
position, that a further extension would damage the interests of
the UK and our EU partners, and the relationship between us,"
Johnson said in the third letter, signed "Boris Johnson".
The EU, which has grappled with more than three years of
tortuous Brexit crisis, was clearly bewildered by the
contradictory signals from London.
Tusk said he had received the request from Johnson.
"I will now start consulting EU leaders on how to react," he
said on Twitter.
French President Emmanuel Macron told Johnson that Paris
needed swift clarification on the situation after Saturday's
vote, an official at the French presidency told Reuters.
"He (Macron) signalled a delay would be in no one's
interest," the official said.
It was unlikely that the EU's 27 remaining member states
would refuse Britain's delay request. Diplomats said on Sunday
the bloc would play for time rather than rush to decide, waiting
to see how things developed in London next week.
BREXIT LAW
Johnson won the top job by staking his career on getting
Brexit done by the latest deadline of Oct. 31 after his
predecessor, Theresa May, was forced to delay the departure
date. Parliament rejected her deal three times, by margins of
between 58 and 230 votes earlier this year.
He had hoped to pass his own newly struck deal at an
extraordinary sitting of parliament on Saturday but that was
derailed by a legislative booby trap set by a rebel lawmaker
concerned that Britain might still drop out without a deal.
Lawmakers voted 322 to 306 in favour of an amendment that
turned Johnson's planned finale on its head by obliging him to
ask the EU for a delay, and increasing the opportunity for
opponents to frustrate Brexit.
In his own signed letter to Tusk, Johnson said he was
confident that the process of getting the Brexit legislation
through Britain's parliament would be completed before Oct. 31.
Former minister Amber Rudd said she and most of the 21
Conservatives kicked out of the ruling party over their bid to
block a no-deal Brexit would support the deal and there was "a
fragile but sincere coalition of people who want to support it".
Oliver Letwin, the lawmaker behind Saturday's booby trap,
said on Sunday that he believed Johnson could probably get his
Brexit deal over the line.
"I am absolutely behind the government now as long as they
continue with this bill, continue with the deal. I will support
it, I will vote for it," Letwin told BBC television.
"There will be no more Oliver Letwin amendments next week
because there don’t need to be. I am supporting the bill."
But the opposition Labour Party accused Johnson of acting as
if he was above the law, and warned that the prime minister
could end up in court.
Labour's Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer said the party would
put forward amendments to Johnson's Brexit legislation,
particularly aimed at closing the "trap door" to no-deal Brexit
at the end of a transition period in December 2020.
Starmer also said an election was inevitable.
"He is being childlike. The law is very clear he should have
signed one letter ... If we crash out, because of what he has
done with the letters, in 11 days' time without a deal he bears
personal responsibility for that," Starmer told BBC television.
Asked whether it would end up in court, Starmer said: "I am
sure there will be court proceedings."
Scotland's highest court is due to consider on Monday a
legal challenge that had sought to force Johnson to comply with
the law forcing a delay.
The court said earlier this month that government lawyers
had given formal legal statements that he would abide by the law
and that it would be a serious matter if he did not.
(Writing by Michael Holden and Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by
Dale Hudson)