Brexit Secretary David Davis delivers his speech at the Conservative party's annual conference in Manchester, England, on October 3, 2017 | Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images David Davis: EU Brexit briefings ‘offensive, even insulting’ Speaking at the Conservative Party’s annual conference, the Brexit secretary also outlined the British government’s preparations for a ‘no-deal’ Brexit scenario.

MANCHESTER, England — Brexit Secretary David Davis condemned “offensive, even insulting” briefing against him during the Brexit negotiations, in a Conservative Party conference speech in which he also outlined the British government's preparations for a “no-deal” Brexit scenario.

Davis, the political leader of the British negotiating team, urged party members on Tuesday to be skeptical about “lurid accounts of the negotiations with the predictions of breakdown and crisis.”

Without singling out any EU officials for criticism, he added that he regarded briefings against him “as a compliment.”

The Brexit secretary said the two sides made progress in last week’s negotiations and he called on his party to “keep your eyes on the prize,” asserting that the opportunities from Brexit were “enormous” — but so were “the consequences of failure.”

While the U.K. was still expecting to secure a deal, he said, the government needed to be ready in case negotiations fail.

“That is what a responsible government does,” he said. “Anything else would be a dereliction of duty. So there is a determined effort underway in Whitehall devoted to contingency arrangements so that we are ready for any outcome — not because it is what we seek, but because it needs to be done.”

Davis, who has faced criticisms about this “stability and accountability” from European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, said that one of his main frustrations was the claim that the British were “not good Europeans.”

He cited British military deployments to Eastern Europe, aid spending that is “twice the European average,” and counterterror cooperation with European neighbors, adding that such assistance “isn’t going away” after Brexit.

“We choose to be good global citizens, we choose to be good Europeans,” he added, stirring memories of Prime Minister Theresa May’s much-maligned assertion in her conference speech last year that “if you believe you’re a citizen of the world you’re a citizen of nowhere.”

Davis, who is touted as a possible successor to May, has dismissed newspaper reports that he is planning to retire after Brexit in 2019 to make way for Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, claiming that his comments were a joke.

He took a swipe at Johnson, who has faced accusations of undermining the prime minister in recent weeks, saying that the U.K. trains the best diplomats in the world “and puts them to the test by sending them to work for the foreign secretary.”