UK will face €100bn Brexit bill, but Davis says 'we will not pay it'

Brexit minister David Davis said the UK will not cough up €100bn in any deal to leave the European Union, and will only pay what is legally due.

Having previously mooted a figure of around €60bn, the EU is now seeking a Brexit bill nearer €100bn, according to calculations made after member states met over the weekend to decide on its guidelines ahead of the beginning of negotiations.

The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier is due to release the agreed-upon guidelines on Wednesday without any monetary figure for a divorce bill attached.

In an interview on ITV's Good Morning Britain on Wednesday, Davis was adamant that the government had not been informed of any financial obligations by the bloc.

"We are not supplicants," Davis told the programme. "This is a negotiation. They lay down what they want and we lay down what we want."

However, when asked directly about the figure, Davis said: “We will not be paying €100bn”.

"We will do it properly. We will take our responsibilities seriously. What we've got to do is discuss in detail what the rights and obligations are."

The Financial Times calculated the €100bn Brexit bill based on stricter demands from France and Germany, in particular over post-Brexit farm payments and EU administration fees.

Negotiations between Britain and the EU are due to begin in earnest in the coming weeks and months as both sides set out their positions following Theresa May's invoking of Article 50 earlier this year.

May said during an election event this week that she was a "bloody difficult woman", warning the EU’s Jean-Claude Juncker as the UK cabinet becomes more frustrated with the bloc’s tactics ahead of the negotiations.

But it also emerged on Wednesday that May will be barred from negotiating the terms of Brexit with her fellow EU leaders, with The Times reporting an increasingly hardline approach will see the PM only able to talk with Barnier and prevented from joining discussions at future EU heads of state meetings.

This new position contradicts May’s insistence during an election campaign speech last week that she would personally negotiate Brexit with the “prime ministers, presidents and chancellors of Europe”.