UK ideally seeking access to EU single market, says David Davis

The UK is ideally seeking tariff-free access to the EU single market and controls on immigration, Brexit secretary David Davis said on Thursday.

In a trip to Belfast to meet with first minister Arlene Foster to placate fears of a hard border with the Irish Republic and a lack of EU subsidies to Northern Irish farmers post-Brexit, Davis said during negotiations he would seek to gain access to the single market.

"With respect to access to the single market, what we will seek to do is ideally have a tariff-free access but this is a matter of negotiation. We will be negotiating over an issue I suspect is in the interest of other members of the EU and others to get a good trading relationship in the long run.

"We have to take control of our borders and have to be able to control the number of people coming into UK."

In the first cabinet since the summer recess at Chequers on Wednesday, prime minister Theresa May said Britain should seek a unique relationship with the EU and not one modelled on other trade agreements. She also said that her government should take heed of trading opportunities beyond the EU.

It suggested she had rejected the notion that the UK had to choose between access to the single market and controls on immigration. Other EU nations have previously said the UK cannot have both.

The Daily Telegraph reported on Sunday that Davis, along international trade secretary Liam Fox and Nick Timothy, an adviser to the prime minister, thought that immigration could only be curbed if the UK leaves the single market.

Access to the EU’s single market is important to the financial sector and the automotive industry. Chancellor Philip Hammond previously said he would put forward plans to retain access on a sector-by-sector basis.