Davis warns Tories against PM challenge
Secretary ‘pretty sure’ talks will be successful
A TORY leadership contest would be “catastrophic” for EU withdrawal negotiations, Brexit Secretary David Davis has warned.
Mr Davis, who is tipped as one of the front-runners to succeed Theresa May as Prime Minister, said the country needed a stable backdrop for its attempts to cut a Brexit deal with Brussels.
Asked if a leadership contest would be catastrophic for those negotiations, the Haltemprice and Howden MP told the BBC’s
Andrew Marr Show: “Yes. Yes. “Let me be absolutely plain about this, number one, I happen to think we have got a very good Prime Minister.
“I know she is coming under a lot of pressure at the moment, but I have seen her in action.
“I think she is very good. She makes good decisions. She’s bold. She takes her time.
“Point number two is, I want a stable backdrop to this Brexit negotiation.”
Mr Davis said his message to Tory MPs seeking a leadership battle was: “Don’t be so self-indulgent. Get on with the day job. The more self-indulgent nonsense you go in for, the more difficult you make it to do our proper job.”
Mr Davis said he took some blame for urging Mrs May to call the snap election, but he had not apologised to her for it.
He said: “I take my share of the blame for it – along with the other 20 members of the Cabinet who also said it was a good idea.
“No, I didn’t apologise to her. I didn’t design the campaign.”
He also said it was not certain the UK would secure an EU withdrawal deal.
BREXIT SECRETARY David Davis has said he is not certain the UK will secure an EU withdrawal deal.
Mr Davis said he was “pretty sure” an agreement could be struck, but left the door open to leaving the bloc without one.
The Brexit Secretary said that no deal “would be better than a punishment deal”.
The remarks come after Chancellor Philip Hammond said that no deal would be “very, very bad” for the UK.
Asked if he was sure there would be a deal cut, Mr Davis told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “I’m pretty sure, I am not 100 per cent sure, you can never be, it’s a negotiation.
“I’m sure there will be a deal, whether it’s the deal I want, which is a free trade agreement, the customs agreement, and so on, I’m pretty sure, but I’m not certain.”
The Haltemprice and Howden MP said part of his portfolio was planning for a bad outcome.
He said: “We cannot have a circumstance where the other side says that they are going to punish you.
“So, if that happens then there is a walkaway, and we have to plan for that.
“Half my job is the invisible job of actually planning for all outcomes, the good, the bad, the whole range.”
Asked if he agreed with the Chancellor that no deal would be very, very bad, Mr Davis said: “It would be better than a punishment deal.
“I’m being very clear about this. In my job I don’t think out loud, I don’t make guesses. I try to make decisions, you make those based on the data.”
Mr Davis said Britain would need transitional trade arrangements with the EU for a time after Brexit.
He said: “We think that there will be a transitional period, not that long.
“I think one to two years is more likely. It will vary. This is something incredibly practical.”
Mr Davis said Government plans for dealing with the status of the 3.2 million EU nationals in the UK would not make them “second-class” citizens but give them “effectively British citizenship rights.”
“They get the same residence rights, the same employment rights, the same health rights, the same welfare rights, the same pensions rights and so on, almost the equivalent to British citizens.
“The only thing they don’t get is the right to vote.”
Mr Davis said the cut-off point for when EU nationals would have had to be resident in the UK to be eligible for the scheme has yet to be decided but will fall somewhere between Article 50 being triggered last March, and Britain’s leaving date of March 2019. The Cabinet minister said he did not expect anyone to be deported unless they had committed a crime, or it was to do with security issues.
Asked what his counterpart in the Brexit negotiations – Michel Barnier – was like, Mr Davis said: “Well, he’s very French. Oh, he’s very grand. He’s very elegant.”
Tory former chancellor Ken Clarke said the election outcome would put pressure on Mrs May to compromise on Brexit.
He told Sky News: “Any three members of Parliament, or, perhaps, half a dozen, certainly, are their party’s majority. But that puts pressure on people to actually reach some compromises and reunite the party.
“We are very divided on Europe.”
Asked if he had seen the Tories in such a “mess” in the past, Mr Clarke said: “I’ve seen nothing like this. It’s quite unique.”
Liberal Democrat Brexit spokesman Tom Brake said: “David Davis inspires about as much confidence as a drunken trapeze artist.
“But it is the country as a whole that will suffer when he comes crashing to the floor.
“These negotiations will affect our lives for decades, but he’s only ‘pretty sure’ of getting a deal.
“It is simply not good enough.”