Britain will be “perfectly OK” without a deal on Brexit and should be prepared to walk away from EU talks likely to start formally this week, Boris Johnson has said.

The Foreign Secretary rejected warnings from an influential committee of MPs about “mutually assured damage” in the event of no deal, saying the consequences would not be “apocalyptic”.

His comments exposed a Cabinet split over the prospect of negotiations failing, with the International Trade Secretary Liam Fox saying it would “of course be bad” if no deal was reached. Meanwhile David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, said he was “confident I’ll get a good outcome” from talks with the 27 member states.