BRITAIN has “not got a prayer to unite” until Brexit is done, Boris Johnson has insisted, as he hinted the EU might be prepared to block a further delay to withdrawal to avoid keeping a “truculent” UK in the Brussels bloc.

As the Conservative Party gets underway in Manchester the Prime Minister admitted negotiations with the EU were “delicate” but made clear there was a “good chance of getting an excellent deal”.

And he also sought to play down the row over the use of inflammatory language at Westminster last week, apologising for a “misunderstanding” over his use of the word “humbug,” saying it was not used in response to female MPs expressing concerns about getting death threats but, rather, an attempt to limit parliamentary language. He insisted it was “perfectly legitimate” to use military metaphors like surrender in political discourse.

Mr Johnson told the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme: "The best thing for the country and for people's overall psychological health would be to get Brexit done.

"It's not just I who thinks that - if you look at where the public is, whether they voted Leave or Remain - they really think it's up to Parliament now to get this thing over the line."

He went on: "We haven't got a prayer of uniting the country until we get Brexit over the line. That's my crucial point. I believe that we've been waiting for three and a half years now to deliver on this result."

The PM said the negotiations with the EU were “delicate” but, nonetheless, there was a “good chance of getting an excellent deal”.

He again argued that the Benn Act to extend Britain’s withdrawal to January 31 was hampering his Government’s efforts to strike a Brexit deal.

Mr Johnson explained that in Brussels "if they think there is a realistic chance that the UK can be kept in", then that "takes away a lot of our negotiating freedom of manoeuvre".

Despite the Benn Act he claimed that "of course we can" leave the EU without a deal on October 31.

The Tory leader refused to set out how he would do that but did not rule out asking another EU leader to veto a request for a delay.

"I'm not going to get into my discussions with any other EU head of state about the negotiations, because they are extremely interesting but they are also delicate."

Mr Johnson then added: "It is certainly true that other EU countries also don't want this thing to keep dragging on.

"They don't want the UK to remain in the EU, truculent and mutinous and in a limbo, and not wishing to co-operate in the way that they would like.

"They want a good deal and there's the opportunity now to get a good deal,” he declared.

The PM added: "What I would like is for the Government to be able to get on and do that deal and we are working very hard. I'm not going to pretend to you that it's going to be easy."

As the Conservative conference prepared to get underway, Mr Johnson:

*set out plans for 40 new hospitals as the Tories prepare to make the NHS a key battleground in the next general election;

*hit out at the "novel and peculiar" decision by the UK Supreme Court to rule that his suspension of Parliament was unlawful

*made clear he would not do an electoral deal with Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and

*declined to say if he had apologised to the Queen over the prorogation row.

In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the PM said spending on the NHS was "absolutely central" to his vision of a "united society and a united country".

Under the plans drawn up by Health Secretary Matt Hancock, he said they would be spending £13bn on what officials described as "new" hospitals, either with entirely new buildings or gutting existing structures to create state-of-the-art facilities.

This would mean a consequent windfall under the Barnett Formula of more than £1bn for the Scottish Government to spend on its priorities.

Taken alongside the extra £33.9bn the Government has committed to the NHS each year by 2023, Mr Johnson said it was "the largest sum that has ever been invested in the NHS".

The hospital building plan would begin with a £2.7bn cash injection for six hospitals over the next five years.

The remaining projects, including up to a dozen smaller rural hospitals, would be completed over the second half of the next decade.

Ministers are also providing £100 million in "seed funding" to help 21 trusts develop plans to rebuild or construct 34 hospitals, including up to a dozen community hospitals in Dorset.