Brexit posturing continues over summer as backroom negotiations roll on — Interview

The Government denied this was the case, but City University professor Tim Lang, a co-author of the report, added: “One could argue that this is sensible emergency planning, but it is also risky”.

Mr Hunt signalled a change in rhetoric when he visited Germany on Monday, warning that only Russian President Vladimir Putin would welcome a no-deal Brexit.

Mr Raab told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show if the “energy, ambition and pragmatism” the United Kingdom brought to negotiations was reciprocated, a deal would be done in October.

“But if they don’t accept it, we’re also ramping up our no deal preparations”.

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on Friday said that the UK government’s white paper for a future UK-EU partnership opened “the way to a constructive discussion”, adding however that the EU27 still have many questions about the plan.

Theresa May will meet the Austrian chancellor and Czech and Estonian prime ministers this week.

Theresa May hopes the government’s plan, detailed recently in the Brexit White Paper, will allow the two sides to reach a deal on relations by the autumn.

She said: “Both of those are unacceptable”.

“Faced with that we had an option”.

Leaked official minutes from Chequers said that the Chancellor had “disagreed with the Home Secretary on labour mobility and ending free movement”, and called for European Union workers to be given “preferential” treatment in an attempt to strike a post-Brexit trade deal.

She said the United Kingdom would “do really well post-Brexit” and would be “much more outward-looking”.

As ever, the main sticking point remains how to avoid a “hard border” between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

The “downside” was ‘there are now serious questions we can deliver on a deal’.

The boss of Amazon has warned that Britain faces “civil unrest” within two weeks if we leave the European Union without a deal.

It has faced severe criticism, including from within her own cabinet and Conservative Party, for keeping Britain too close to Europe.

“I expect the two sides will talk, and there will be remarkably little of that leaked to the press”, he said.

Foreign office minister Sir Alan Duncan warned Leave-supporting MPs that “theological purity” is not on offer in the “real world” of Brexit negotiations, as he warned they are “playing with fire” by criticising the prime minister.

“We’re going to have to do a reset and come back and look at it all again”, he told the Sunday Express.

British MP and leading Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg. “We are prepared to show flexibility if the British Prime Minister can show flexibility”.