“We will be packing our bags and walking out,” Johnson wrote in the Sun on Sunday. “The only question is whether Brussels cheerily waves us off with a mutually agreeable deal, or whether we will be forced to head off on our own.”

But Johnson is issuing contradictory messages. The government has repeatedly said it will obey a law passed by Parliament forcing the premier to request a Brexit delay if he cannot get an agreement by October 19. However, a senior official in his office said on Sunday it would be a historic misunderstanding if EU leaders thought Johnson’s domestic opponents could prevent a no-deal departure.

Securing a Brexit deal is the only obvious way to obey the law and see through Brexit at the end of the month. But the indications from the EU are that proposals Johnson made last week to resolve the impasse will not cut it. As time ticks down to Brexit day, there were no negotiations over the weekend.

In other developments, Macron told Johnson that an assessment would be made at the end of the week on whether an agreement is possible that respects EU principles of protecting the single market and the Northern Ireland peace process.

Johnson also spoke with his counterparts from Finland and Portugal over the weekend and plans to talk to more leaders. Johnson’s EU envoy, David Frost, will have discussions with the European Commission, while Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay is on a three-day tour of European capitals.

The government said it will consider publishing the legal text of its latest Brexit proposal if deemed helpful to move negotiations forward.

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Barclay suggested there’s room for the UK to alter its position on customs checks between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and on how to determine consent by Northern Ireland. “Of course in the mechanism as part of the intensive negotiations, we can look at that,” he told the BBC.

Time is short to reach a consensus. Ireland’s Varadkar said on Saturday it would be “reasonable” to expect an improved UK offer by Friday, while Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins told the BBC on Sunday that “the EU doesn’t have a whole lot of wiggle room”, because of the difficulty in getting 27 nations to agree.

Finnish Prime Minister Antti Rinne, who holds the EU’s rotating presidency, told Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper that he doesn’t expect any UK proposal to emerge that could be acceptable before the October 17-18 leaders’ summit in Brussels.

That has left the British press speculating about whether Johnson will delay Brexit, something he has said he’d rather die in a ditch than do. The Sunday Telegraph, citing two cabinet ministers, reported that if forced to delay, Johnson plans to sabotage the EU by possibly blocking its seven-year budget, and sending a Eurosceptic commissioner to Brussels – possibly even Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage. Suggestions like that may give EU leaders doubts about approving an extension.

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Another theory circulating at Westminster is that the premier could ask another country to veto an extension: a notion dismissed as “tittle-tattle” by Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick. “I’ve not heard any serious talk of that,” he told Sky News on Sunday.

The Labour Party’s spokeswoman on legal matters, Shami Chakrabarti, told the BBC on Sunday that there’s no way around the law for Johnson. “If you send the letter as you are required to under the law and then seek to undermine it by other means, you have not kept faith with the law,” she said. “That would be unlawful conduct.”

The Daily Telegraph, citing several government officials, reports in its Monday edition that Johnson is prepared to go to the Supreme Court to avoid having to write the letter seeking to delay Brexit.

The EU has said it will not grant an extension without a valid reason. Making the time to negotiate new proposals is likely to meet that requirement, as would allowing for Britain to hold a general election to break the Parliamentary deadlock.

Labour has so far rebuffed Johnson’s bid for an early general election, though the opposition party says it wants one. Chakrabarti said that once Johnson has sought to a delay Brexit, “then I think we’re looking realistically at a general election certainly this side of Christmas, hopefully substantially before Christmas”.

Meanwhile, Johnson is facing scrutiny over allegations he had an intimate relationship with a US businesswoman and failed to disclose the personal links when he was London mayor and she received thousands of pounds in public business funding and places on official trade trips.

The businesswoman, Jennifer Arcuri, repeatedly refused to answer questions on Monday about whether they had an affair, saying they bonded over a shared love of classical literature and she cares deeply about him as a friend.

“Because the press have made me this objectified ex-model pole dancer model, I really am not going to answer that question,” she told ITV.

“It’s really categorically no one’s business what private life we had or didn’t have … And categorically more important, Boris never ever gave me favouritism, never once did I ask him for a favour, never once did he write a letter of recommendation for me,” she said.

Asked about the allegations, Johnson said everything was done with full propriety and that there was no interest to declare.