MPs will get ‘series’ of Commons votes before final say on EU deal, says Brexit Secretary David Davis

David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, has revealed MPs will get a “series” of votes in Parliament before a final one on ratifying a new deal with the European Union – opening up the potential for deadlock in the Commons.

It comes after Theresa May used the most important speech of her premiership so far to outline the Government’s plan for leaving the EU. On Tuesday, the Prime Minister warned she would walk away from the EU withdrawal negotiations without a trade deal if the other countries attempted to impose a “bad deal”.

In an interview on the BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme the Brexit Secretary, however, insisted this was hypothetical and that the Government would come through with the “best deal possible”.

Mr Davis also claimed this would be achieved within the two-year timeframe allowed under Article 50 – the mechanism Ms May is expecting to trigger before the end of March in order to begin negotiations with the 27 other EU member states.

And in a separate interview on Good Morning Britain, Mr Davies was asked what would happen if his plan “all went wrong”. He replied: “It won’t go wrong, we’re very clear what we want to do. We’re very clear what we want out and it’s in everyone’s interest. Why on earth could it go wrong?”

But referring to an announcement by the Prime Minister that Parliament will vote on the final EU deal at the end of the process, he said: “There will be a lot of votes before then. There’s going to be a vote, at the very least, on the Great Repeal Bill. There’s going to a vote on each major piece of change in law.

“There’s not going to a single vote, there’s going to be series of votes, on which the last one… will be the ratification.”

Asked what would happen in the event of Parliament voting down the negotiation, Mr Davis replied: “It’s a legislative matter. It’s not dead… Parliament gave the decision on leaving to the people by the vast majority. It’s not for Parliament to reverse that. So at the end of the day they will end up deciding.

“They won’t vote it down,” he added. “This negotiation will succeed.”

According to the Sun, the Prime Minister could be persuaded to head to the polls in 2019 to obtain a mandate for her plan. One minister told the newspaper: “The PM knows she always has the voters up her sleeve, and she wants to keep them there.

“If Parliament tries to block the deal she has brokered and recommended, then she will go to the country.”

In the Radio 4 interview, Mr Davis also added it may be a “year or two” after Britain formally cuts ties with its European allies before the UK is fully free. Ms May had acknowledged this at her speech at Lancaster House, outlining how there may have to be an “implementation period”.

Mr Davis added: “At the end of two years, we will have our deals, what may take a little longer is implementation.

"I don't know, whether it's customs arrangements or it's a time for companies to accommodate things, or whether it's border arrangements, or some other elements. And we've said we accept that there may be an implementation phase thereafter.

"It won't be a long time... a year or two."

He also referred to Ms May’s speech, which was received with a degree of caution in Europe, as “one of the best speeches I’ve heard from a Prime Minister in a very long time”.