Hi MyWorld. I am sorry to hear that. I think confronting your mentor won't make things better because dealing with him became impossible anyway. I suggest that you raise the issue with director of graduate study as you said and be firm and persist that it is for you impossible to continue in this lab.
If things went really bad and nothing has changed, you can make a formal complaint. I know it sounds crazy and you are afraid of losing everything. But sometimes if you stay afraid of something and do not deal with it, you are being tortured and eventually your worst fears come true.

Hi. I would tell you shortly my experience. I had MSc in UK and went for RA role also in UK. It was not possible to do a PhD during my RA role because then I had to pay the difference between Home/EU international fees (about 9000 Pounds a year). So I continued my RA role for about 2 year. I have visited a conference and when I met other PhD students there, I felt sad because I was neither a PhD or a Postdoc. Actually to work in academia, you should have a PhD otherwise you would be different (like Wolwitz in Big bang theory :) )
Anyway, I went for an RA role in Germany and started a PhD at the same time. It is quite common here and many PhD students are paid well as RAs. When I went to a conference this time, I felt "equal" to PhD students from other universities. It was nice not to feel less. Unfortunately, things did not go well in my PhD and after 5 years my contract was not extended and I left to industry without a PhD but this is another story.
What I am afraid of, you feel bad and regret giving away a good chance for the romantic hope to have intellectual freedom after several years. Also your urge for a PhD may cause you to choose a subject which is not your favourite. You may end up with a bad supervisor. A lot of possibilities. I like taking risks but only if the odds are high for a good outcome. But taking this risk, I really do not recommend.

Hi. The two papers should present different things. They may have somehow the same theory but lead to different results. Or you may have a concept and the concept is verified by two different experiments. I would not recommmend repeating most of the paper in two conferences.

Hi Tudor_Quuen. I am sorry that things did not go as expected during your PhD. I will try to answer your questions.
Good references are very helpful in securing RA roles. But be aware that some RA roles are not that often like Postdoc. Having not completed a PhD is not a good sign for considering you for a new PhD but I would say your chances are still not bad especially if you publish a couple of papers.
I know this is not your question but I cannot help not saying it. If you got RA role, you will also not chance of freedom in research. THere is a high chance that you regret submitting MPhil. You are still at the beginning of an academic career and your PhD is not expected to be perfect. If you see other colleagues or Postdocs who have lower quality PhDs than you would have had, you will feel sorry for yourself.
So please think again. I am afraid this step can make you quit academic career at one point.

hi. I would recommend carrying out the remaining MSc courses and get the degree. I think it will help you having better opportunities.

30 is too old? Are you kidding? Why do you care about the age of other graduates?
Anyway, just write an honest well written cover letter for jobs you like. Once you have a kick start, the wheel will turn on. Good luck.

Hi Tudor_Queen. I have not been through this but I will comment on the part about asking and Emailing about small details. I personally feel shy about asking and sometimes I tend to delay work because of not asking. If you are that kind of person, I would suggest to go ahead with your way and ask their feedback when the paper is in a reasonable state.
One of my supervisors did not like to give feedback before the paper is revised by several sudents and is already in a good shape. I would suggest if you can "guess" what they mean or want, go with it. If it is really a blocking point, you may email them.

Hello. It is really interesting for me to answer as I have taken two RA roles but unfortunately did not lead to a PhD. As a general role, the main advantage of RA is you get more money at the expense that your main focus should be the funded project. If you are UK/EU citizen, paying PhD tuition fees won't be a catastrophe.
In theory and pin practice also, you can register for a PhD and your line manager will be your supervisor also. Your work in the funded project could be included (not necessarly all of it) in your thesis. I strongly advise you to go for it.
If you find in one or two years that the PhD is not going well, you can quit but at this time you should have a few publications which can support your application for another PhD.
There are two things I should warn you from. 1st to have a career in academia, you should have a PhD. Do not spend 6-8 years working as RA without a PhD. The other warning is: do not ignore alerts about insufficient progress of your PhD. You are paid to do RA that is fine but PhD is also very important.

Hi Polypickleploidy. Could you please tell us if the role is in the UK or other Europe?
In Germany it is quite commin to hire research assistants and in the mean time they pursue a PhD.

Hi Kimberley. What I strongly advise you is to be naturla and very honest in your interview. You can say exactly what you feel. If you like the topic and would like to work for it for 3 years, then go for it. If you just wanna have a PhD to start a career in research, I do not recommend that.

Hi. I think you have some analysis which is not yet concluded. If the abstract is accepted, you will conclude it (because you will have to). If rejected, you would have worked more on the analysis and you can submit it somewhere else.

Hi. You can try anyway it won't hurt.
I have worked with two supervisors. One of them always believed what we have is enough and worth publishing and pushed me to do it. So in a research assistant job for one and half years I got 3 conference papers and one journal. The other one used to say wait until we confirm by measurements to publish in a better ranked journal so ended up with one conference in 5 years period.
Of course there were other reasons including myself but the attitude of believing in what you did and persistence of publication is really helpful.

Hi queen. I look forward to your topic about crap thesis and successful reseachers. By the way, you would be surprised that your thesis won't be crap at all. You may find yours ways above average. Believe me, very few theses are perfect.

Hello. I meant the better version of study 1 to submit. Anyway, you have already good reasons to change plans (the re-analysis which proved there were better ways to go than study 2 and study 3). In my opinion you should have a coherent thesis which is expected not to be perfect. I suggest you start with study 1 (original) and say it led to study 2 and study 3. After analysing the results, you can mention study 1 (modified version) and conclude that it " might" be better in further work to go "study 2(modified) and study3(modified).
In short, in thesis you just write a coherent "non perfect" thesis but in your viva you can say that you have analysed this and found better ways to do this but I am afraid they might recommend to redo experiments and resubmit? but hopefully not.
I heared from one PhD students that they like you to critise your work in viva and say it could have been better.

Hi. I would agree with kikothedog. Study1 (1st version) then study 2 and 3 were based on it. At conclusion or just before it, the reanalysed study 1. Also try tp publish the new analysis of study 1 in a paper.