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		</div><p>David Davis has accused Brussels and its chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier of having a &#8220;silly&#8221; approach to the talks on the UK&#8217;s withdrawal from the European Union.</p>
<p>The UK&#8217;s Brexit Secretary said the EU was trying to put pressure on the UK over the demands for a so-called divorce fee, the subject of a bitter row during the latest round of talks.</p>
<p>His comments came as Theresa May sought to prevent a Tory rebellion ahead of the first Commons votes on the Brexit legislation.</p>
<p>The British Prime Minister&#8217;s allies have warned would-be rebels that they risk putting Jeremy Corbyn into Number 10 if they attempt to water down the so-called Repeal Bill.</p>
<p>The latest round of talks ended in an icy press conference, with Mr Barnier claiming there had been no &#8220;decisive&#8221; progress on key issues and suggesting there was a lack of trust as a result of the UK&#8217;s refusal to accept financial obligations.</p>
<p>But Mr Davis told BBC&#8217;s Andrew Marr Show: <i>&#8220;They have set this up to try to create pressure on us on money, that&#8217;s what it&#8217;s about, they are trying to play time against money.&#8221;</i></p>
<p>Comparing Brussels&#8217; demands to a hotel bill presented to a guest on checking out, Mr Davis said: <i>&#8220;We are going through it line by line and they are finding it difficult because we have got good lawyers.&#8221;</i></p>
<p>He said Mr Barnier &#8220;wants to put pressure on us, which is why the stance this week in the press conference &#8211; bluntly, I think it looked a bit silly because there plainly were things that we had achieved&#8221;.</p>
<p>Mr Davis insisted he was not branding Mr Barnier personally &#8220;silly&#8221;, adding: <i>&#8220;I said the commission would make itself look silly&#8221;.</i></p>
<p>The Brexit Secretary dismissed as &#8220;nonsense&#8221; claims that the UK would pay a £50 billion fee to exit the EU.</p>
<p>The &#8220;strict position&#8221; was that there was &#8220;no enforceable&#8221; legal basis for the UK to pay money to Brussels but &#8220;we are a country that meets its international obligations &#8211; but they have got to be there&#8221;.</p>
<p>Those obligations <i>&#8220;may not be legal ones, they may be moral ones or political ones&#8221;</i>, he said.</p>
<p>The EU is only prepared to begin trade talks once it has assessed that &#8220;sufficient progress&#8221; has been made on issues including the financial settlement.</p>
<p>Mr Davis said money was &#8220;the thing that frightens them most&#8221; and insisted that the UK would not be forced into backing down in order to begin trade talks in October.</p>
<p><i>&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to allow them to use the time pressure on that to somehow force us into doing X or Y or Z,&#8221;</i> he said.</p>
<p>The UK was &#8220;planning for all options&#8221;, including the possibility of leaving without a deal from Brussels.</p>
<p>But a good deal was &#8220;by far and away the highest probability&#8221;, Mr Davis insisted.<br />
The parliamentary battle over Brexit will begin on Thursday as the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill begins its journey through the Commons.</p>
<p>In a plea to &#8220;soft Brexit&#8221; backers, Mr Davis said: <i>&#8220;If you want something like continuity, this is the Bill you should be supporting.&#8221;</i></p>
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