EU chief says the risk of a no-deal Brexit 'remains very real'

European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker says the risk of the U.K. leaving the European Union without a divorce deal remains "very real."

Speaking at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, Juncker, who met with Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday, said a no-deal Brexit "might be the choice of the U.K., but it will never be ours."

The European Parliament is debating Brexit on Wednesday and is set to adopt a resolution laying out its concerns.

The main sticking point over a Brexit deal is the Irish border backstop, which would require the U.K. to retain some EU trade rules.

Juncker said, "I have no sentimental attachment to the backstop" but that he remains attached to the purpose it serves. He says "I asked the British prime minister to specify the alternative arrangements that he could envisage."

Meanwhile, EU lawmakers adopted a non-binding resolution supporting another extension to the Brexit deadline of Oct. 31 if Britain requests it. 

After a three-hour debate Wednesday, lawmakers voted 544 in favour, 126 against, with 38 abstentions in the Parliament's plenary in Strasbourg. 

Court case continues

The government was back at the Supreme Court on Wednesday, arguing Johnson's decision to suspend Parliament just weeks before the country is set to leave the EU was neither improper nor illegal.

It's the second day of a historic three-day hearing that pits the powers of the legislature against those of its executive.

A government lawyer was set to argue a lower court was right to rule Johnson's suspension of Parliament was a matter of "high policy and politics," not law.

The government's opponents argue Johnson illegally shut down Parliament for the "improper purpose" of dodging lawmakers' scrutiny of his Brexit plans. They also accuse Johnson of misleading the Queen, whose formal approval was needed to suspend the legislature.

The government claims the shutdown was routine and not related to Brexit, and say that, whatever the reason, under the country's largely unwritten constitution, the suspension was a matter for politicians, not the courts.

Johnson sent lawmakers home on Sept. 9 until Oct. 14.

The prime minister has said Britain must leave the EU at the end of next month with or without a divorce deal. But many lawmakers believe a no-deal Brexit would be economically devastating and socially destabilizing. They have put obstacles in his way, including a law compelling the government to seek a delay to Brexit if it can't get a divorce deal with the EU.

Parliament's suspension spared Johnson further meddling by the House of Commons, but sparked legal challenges, to which lower courts gave contradictory rulings. Britain's High Court said the move was a political rather than legal matter, but Scottish court judges ruled Johnson acted illegally "to avoid democratic scrutiny."

The Supreme Court is being asked to decide who was right.