TORY veteran David Davis revealed the final exit deal with the EU was almost 90 per cent there – in a bumper boost for Brexit Britain.

The Brexit Secretary said EU leaders realised a deal was in their best interest - but admitted he’d underestimated the Northern Ireland deadlock.

3 Brexit Secretary David Davis revealed the final exit deal with the EU was 90 per cent done Credit: PA:Press Association

The Cabinet minister also accused Sinn Fein of using their “strong influence” to meddle in the negotiations that he said were going “broadly as expected”.

Interviewed by retired US Army General Stan McChrystal, who now runs the McChrystal Group leadership consultancy, he said divorce talks were going “broadly as expected”.

He said “some of the surprises have been on Northern Ireland” - but he had “a reasonable idea of where we’ll end up”.

He added: “Some of it I’m not so certain on, but If I wrote on an envelope to give it to you now I could probably tell you 80-90 per cent of where we’ll end up.”

3 Davis said that EU leaders, including Jean-Claude Juncker (left) and Michel Barnier (right), realised a deal was in their best interest Credit: EPA

And he joked: “I could specify the ten per cent I don’t know. There are a few known unknowns.”

But he warned officials had their backs against the wall to cut a deal by the end of the year and time was a “real pressure”.

He said: “One of the enemies in this is time. We have to deliver by the end of this year. We have to get the substance agreed by the end of the year.

“It won’t perfectly work that way but as far as possible we want to get the long term deal in place properly.”

3 Davis blamed complications surrounding the Irish border question on the lack of a Stormont executive Credit: AP:Associated Press

Questioned further on the Northern Ireland border issue he blamed the deadlock on the lack of a Stormont executive and a change of Irish Taoiseach.

He said: “On the other side we had a change of government, south of the border, and with quite a strong influence from Sinn Fein - and that had an impact too in terms of the approach. Understandable - I don’t blame them for that.

“They’ve been playing a strong political role which they haven’t done historically that I hadn’t foreseen.”

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But he insisted the final deal would be decided on by country leaders – not the European Commission – and he believed their interests were “aligned with ours” and everyone wanted “strong relationships”.

He added: “One of the most fascinating anecdotes struck me going round talking to European leaders is every single one of them seems to have children at a British university so they all have an interest in the movement of students.”

DAVID DAVIS RISKS TORY BACKLASH BREXIT Secretary David Davis risked a fresh Tory backlash by saying that being able control immigration was more important than the “number” of migrants coming to Britain. In a Brexit interview he said although it’s “often argued the referendum was about immigration only a small fraction of it was”.He made the comments despite the Tory manifesto commitment to cut immigration to tens of thousands. It came as Theresa May signalled the Government’s goal of cutting net annual immigration below 100,000 will remain in place after Brexit. Quizzed about how firms can attract and retain talent after Brexit Mr Davis said: “When you come to immigration, controlling immigration is more important than what the actual number is.Then when you run the immigration policy for yourself you run it in the national interest. “That means if you are in a battle for talent in the research sector, finance sector as we are in design, engineering, then we’re going to run the policy in a way which favours that. He added: “When on the other side it’s large numbers of people that may not add value and may cause other social pressures then we may be working to shake that down – that’s what you expect. “We are not going to be running a policy in anything other than the national interest.” It came as the PM, speaking during a one-day trip to Copenhagen said she wanted to “continue to work to ensure that we address that particular target” on immigration. She said after Brexit she recognised EU citizens would still want to work and study in the UK. She added: “Of course, crucially, we will be out of the single market and we will be out of the free movement rules, and we will be setting our own rules for migration into the United Kingdom. “We recognise the concern that people in the UK have about this issue of net migration into the UK, which is why we set ourselves a target in relation to net migration and want to continue to work to ensure that we address that particular target.”