Wycombe MP and former Brexit minister Steve Baker has issued a stark warning that the Conservative Party faces a "catastrophic split" if Theresa May sticks to her Chequers plan for future relations with the EU.

The comments came amid open warfare in the Tory ranks following former foreign secretary Boris Johnson's comparison of the Government's Brexit strategy to placing the UK in a "suicide vest" and handing Brussels the detonator.

Mr Baker, who quit the Government in response to Mrs May's plan to keep the UK in a "common rulebook" with the EU for goods and agriculture, urged the Prime Minister to ditch the policy.

He said the party's annual conference in Birmingham, starting on September 30, could prove a decisive moment as Mrs May is forced to acknowledge the scale of grassroots opposition to her proposals.

"If we come out of conference with her hoping to get Chequers through on the back of Labour votes, I think the EU negotiators would probably understand that if that were done, the Tory party would suffer the catastrophic split which thus far we have managed to avoid," he told the Press Association.

Mr Baker, a former chairman of the influential pro-Brexit European Research Group of Conservatives, urged Mrs May to negotiate a free trade agreement instead of the Chequers plan.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid said a Canada-style deal has a "lot to commend it", but it would not address the problem of the Irish border.

In a sign the Government remained committed to its plan, he told BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "I think the only deal that we've got on the table, that's the Chequers deal."

The toxic atmosphere between the two wings of the Conservative Party was vividly illustrated in the reaction to Mr Johnson's incendiary Mail on Sunday column.

Condemning the proposals aimed at resolving the Northern Irish border issue, Mr Johnson said: "We have opened ourselves to perpetual political blackmail. We have wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution - and handed the detonator to Michel Barnier.

"We have given him a jemmy with which Brussels can choose - at any time - to crack apart the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland."

Home Secretary Sajid Javid rebuked his former Cabinet colleague, saying "there are much better ways to articulate your differences".

Communities Secretary James Brokenshire said he thought Mr Johnson had used the wrong "tone" in the article.