Davis to start new round of talks on EU withdrawal

Start of fourth round of negotiations

Brexit secretary David Davis is set to embark on a fresh round of talks on Britain’s EU withdrawal amid continuing tensions among ministers over the Government’s negotiating strategy.

Mr Davis will meet with the EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels today at the start of the fourth round of negotiations.

Their meeting comes after Theresa May attempted to break the deadlock in the stalled talks process with an offer for Britain to continue paying into EU coffers during a two-year transition period after the UK formally leaves in 2019.

While ministers publicly united behind her plan – set out in a keynote speech in Florence on Friday - there fresh were reports of behind-the-scenes clashes between Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Chancellor Philip Hammond.

Mr Davis denied reports that the policy had changed after Mr Johnson – who was reported to have been ready to resign – published his own blueprint for Brexit in a 4,000-word article for the Daily Telegraph.

“The simple truth is Boris signed up to this,” he told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show.

“The policy in the Prime Minister’s speech had been coming for a long time. Some of them – transition – we were designing right back in the beginning of the year.

“Some of it we’d been designing months ago. I don’t think there’s been any change of policy in the last few weeks.”

Asked if he agreed with Home Secretary Amber Rudd who accused the Foreign Secretary of acting as a “backseat driver”, Mr Davis sidestepped the question, saying: “My car’s only got two seats.”

Liberal Democrat chief whip Alistair Carmichael said the Government was in total disarray and called on the Prime Minister to bring her warring ministers to heel.

“She should give Boris the boot and reassert her authority. If she cannot do that then she should stand aside for someone who can,” he said.

Mr Davis confirmed the UK would pay in “roughly” £10 billion a year during that period but played down claims in Brussels that the final “divorce bill” could be £40 billion once pensions and other liabilities were taken into account.

“They sort of made that up too,” he said.