Beaconsfield MP Dominic Grieve is no stranger to a good argument. A barrister by profession and appointed Attorney General in the coalition government in 2010, he knows how to put his point forward in a way he knows will be heard.

So it came as no surprise when he led a Commons rebellion and won parliamentary backing for allowing MPs to be able to amend any future government statement on EU withdrawal plans last week.

He wants MPs to be able to make amendments to the statement in order to try and influence events rather than just note what the government says.

Speaking to the Bucks Free Press this week, he stood by the Prime Minister, saying changing the leader of the party at this stage would “cause chaos at a time of national crisis”.

He said: “The underlying problem is that Brexit is proving very difficult if not impossible to implement in a coherent way. That is an inherent consequence of the decision to leave.

“The Brexit deal – unless the Prime Minister produces a miracle over the weekend – is likely to be rejected by Parliament. That is clearly going to deepen the crisis. I myself can’t support the deal, but I’m the first to accept that that then leaves us with a very considerable problem.

“I don’t believe there is another deal on offer.”

He also branded the idea of leaving without a deal a “disaster”, adding that the government needs to go back to the electorate with the deal and give people the chance to vote again.

He said: “My view has always been that we would do better to go back to the electorate to say to them, ‘Look this is the deal and really there isn’t anything else on offer’.

“If you feel that leaving the EU is so important to you then you must vote for it and if on the other hand you think that it’s all turning out to be a very big mistake, then here is the opportunity to remain. But what we cannot do is crash out with no deal because the damage would be so great.

“I simply disagree with people who say this is an insult to the electorate. But to drag people out of the EU into an outcome that is undesired by what would appear to be the vast majority of the electorate is a very odd thing to do on the basis that there’s no alternative because the decision was made two-and-a-half years ago. There plainly is an alternative.”