LIAM Fox has been accused of suppressing the truth about a no-deal Brexit, after refusing to release official impact studies in case they weaken the UK’s negotiating hand with Europe.

The International Trade Secretary said leaving without a deal on future trading terms with Europe was “not exactly a nightmare scenario”, and French President Emmanuel Macron was “completely wrong” to think the UK was bluffing.

But he said that, despite looking at “a whole range of options” and at how to mitigate the hardest of hard Brexits, the government’s economic assessment had to remain a secret.

The SNP said the refusal to share the information showed no deal would cause “colossal damage” to the economy, as a positive study would be “trumpeted from the rooftops”.

Europe spokesman Stephen Gethins said: “The refusal to publish the economic assessment of a no deal scenario shows just how damning that assessment is in reality.”

Despite Home Secretary Amber Rudd saying last week that Brexit without an EU trade deal was “unthinkable”, Dr Fox said the UK would simply use World Trade Organisation rules.

The Scots-born MP told ITV’s Peston on Sunday: “That’s the basis, not only that Britain trades with countries like the United States, but that the EU trades with the rest of the world in most circumstances. So it’s not exactly a nightmare scenario.”

Asked about the government’s economic assessment of no deal, he went on: “We’ve looked at a whole range of potential options… We would look, if we had no deal, to see what the costs would be and how we might mitigate them for a number of our industries.”

Pressed on whether he would publish those studies, he said: “Why would we publish data in a negotiation that might actually diminish our negotiating hand?”

Dr Fox defended a previous remark that an EU trade deal would be easy on a technical level, and said any difficulty would be political because some senior figures had a “near theological” belief in greater European integration.

He said: “I don’t think they're difficult in terms of trade law or trade negotiations. The difficulty is the politics. In other words, how much does the European Commision and the European elite want to punish Britain for having the audacity to use our legal right to leave the EU?”

In a boost to Theresa May, EU leaders agreed last week to begin scoping work on future trade talks, but made it plain the UK would need to pay more to settle its Brexit divorce bill.

President Macron suggested it could be more than double the 20bn euro offered to date.

Brexit Secretary David Davis will travel to France today for more talks on the issue, while the Prime Minister will update MPs on last week’s summit in Brussels.

She will affirm her support for the 3m EU nationals in the UK, saying "we want them to stay".

She will say: "The negotiations are complicated and deeply technical but in the end they are about people - and I am determined that we will put people first."

Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry said the Prime Minister’s weak position and inability to control her own party was making no deal increasingly likely.

She told the BBC: “I think we are heading for no deal, and I think that is a serious threat to Britain, and it is not in Britain’s interest for that to happen. We will stop it.”

Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer said Labour was ready to work with rebel Tory MPs to overhaul the main Brexit Bill to avert a no deal outcome.

Labour’s six demands include MPs, not ministers, having “the final say on whether to approve the withdrawal agreement” and more powers for the devolved administrations.

The European Parliament's chief Brexit co-ordinator, Guy Verhofstadt, yesterday said Mrs May would need to “face down” Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and other Brexiters in order to offer concessions and get a trade deal.

He said: “It will not be the taxpayers of the European Union who pay Britain's bar bill."