CABINET ministers Amber Rudd, Greg Clark and David Gauke should resign after signalling they could vote to delay Britain's withdrawal from the EU, a pro-Brexit Tory MP has said.

Andrew Bridgen, a member of the pro-Brexit European Research Group, said the three ministers were rejecting Government policy in breach of Cabinet collective responsibility.

"What they are actually saying is that they are rejecting collective responsibility of being in Government, they are rejecting Government policy and they are threatening to vote against Government policy next week," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

"In that case, they should do the honourable thing and resign from the Government immediately."

He accused Downing Street of orchestrating their actions in an attempt to pressurise Tory Brexiteers into backing Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement.

"I think this is partly organised by No 10 – potentially Robbie Gibb, the comms director – to try to bully Brexit-supporting MPs into supporting the Withdrawal Agreement. I am afraid this is not going to work," he said.

Conservative former minister Nick Boles, who is backing moves to delay Brexit if there is no deal, has welcomed the intervention of the three Cabinet ministers.

"I think it is courageous and it is principled, and I applaud them for doing it," he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.

He said that if Tory Brexiteers continued to vote against the Withdrawal Agreement they would end up with a "softer" Brexit.

"If we don't vote for this deal we are going to end up with a softer Brexit deal, which I would prefer but I can't believe members of the ERG would prefer it," he said.

"They just need to wake up to reality. Parliament will only accept this deal or a softer deal and it will not accept leaving without a deal. Some of them may prefer to live without a deal but it is not going to happen."