DAVID Davis has made clear that Brexit will still go ahead even if MPs were to vote against an EU withdrawal deal.
The Brexit Secretary said any vote would not change the fact the UK was leaving the Brussels bloc as a result of last summer's referendum.
No 10 confirmed the vote at Westminster on the final deal would be “binding,” which means that if it were rejected, then Britain would revert to World Trade Organisation rules on trade, which would mean imposing tariffs on goods.
During a Commons statement following Theresa May’s speech, Mr Davis also told MPs some unskilled migration was likely to continue after Brexit but stressed how Westminster would then have the power to set the UK's policy.
During exchanges, Tory backbencher Alex Chalk asked what would happen if MPs thought the UK Government’s negotiated deal were a bad one and so voted it down.
In reply, Mr Davis said: "The referendum last year set in motion a circumstance where the UK's going to leave the European Union; it won't change that.
"What we want to have is a vote so the House can be behind and support the policy, which we are quite sure they will approve of when we get there."
MPs picked up on the Prime Minister’s assertion that no deal would be better than a bad deal.
Labour's Wes Streeting told Mr Davis: “What he is not being clear about is that no deal is a bad deal."
"Given the Chancellor told the Treasury committee that the Prime Minister should enter the negotiations with the widest possible range of options available, why has the Government today chosen to rule out the best possible deal with the European Union, which is membership of the single market, membership of the customs union and, as a result, free-flowing goods and trade with the largest single market in the world on our own doorstep and access for British businesses to half a billion customers?" asked the London MP.
Mr Davis replied: "I don't know where you were on June 23 but the British people pretty much rejected that."
The SNP's Callum McCaig poked fun at Mr Davis's negotiating skills, saying: “No deal is better than a bad deal? I'm slightly perplexed by this. How could a negotiated deal possibly be worse than something that the Secretary of State refers to as a cliff edge? Is he really that bad at negotiation?"
The Brexit Secretary suggested Britain would be pursuing a unique new trading deal with the EU.
He told Labour's Stella Creasy: "We have said from the beginning the relationship, the new partnership we want to have with the European Union will be unique, it will be brand new…Let me give her one example.
"In the trade deal that we're seeking to arrive at, we will be at the same standards of production; same standards applying to all of Britain that applies to the European Union now. There is no other trade deal in the world like that.
"The same thing applies to customs agreement. We are in a position where currently we have no customs barriers, why should we not have a completely frictionless one once we get to the end of the deal?"
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