David Davis tells cabinet to prepare for 'unlikely' possibility of UK not getting Brexit deal – as it happened

The government has been criticised for asserting that it will be able to strike a free trade deal with the EU within two years. “Britain’s partners think that is bonkers,” Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said in an insightful report published recently about the problems the UK will face getting a Brexit deal. Grant went on: "The fact that [Theresa] May proclaimed that everything could be done in two years makes Britain’s partners worry that 10 Downing Street is not fully in touch with reality."

...“Smugness and bravura should be avoided,” said Grant in his CER report, giving advice on how British ministers should conduct themselves in the negotiations. Major said something similar in his speech, arguing: “A little more charm, and a lot less cheap rhetoric, would do much to protect the UK’s interests.”