Ministers have quietly restarted No Deal planning meetings amid fears trade talks with Brussels will collapse, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Whitehall's EU Exit Operations committee – dubbed XO and chaired by Michael Gove – met on Thursday to begin preparations for a 'disorderly December', should Brussels 'fail to grasp we really are going at the end of the year', said a Cabinet Minister who was present.

Our revelation comes after Dominic Cummings warned that Brussels has not yet 'woken up' to Britain's negotiating position – and would not for several weeks yet.

Ministers have quietly restarted No Deal planning meetings amid fears trade talks with Brussels will collapse

The top No 10 aide told Government advisers at a meeting on Friday evening: 'We are not bluffing on the no extension.'

The UK Government has insisted that the EU transition phase will end on December 31, but last week Ireland's EU Commissioner Phil Hogan said that time frame was impossible.

Fears are mounting that Brussels's intransigence and insistence on a settlement of fishing access rights before proper trade talks begin will push the negotiations to collapse.

Mr Cummings's warnings were echoed yesterday by Sajid Javid, who offered business a stark reality check on what Brexit means

In that scenario, the transition phase would end without new border rules in place – hence the Government's reactivation of emergency planning.

Referring to the Conservatives' resounding General Election win, Mr Cummings added that Europe would be wrong to think 'a big majority means a softening of our position'.

And he warned that Brussels has 'failed to grasp their judges will have no power and we are not interested in level playing fields'.

Mr Cummings's warnings were echoed yesterday by Sajid Javid, who offered business a stark reality check on what Brexit means.

The Chancellor told the Financial Times: 'There will not be alignment, we will not be a rule-taker, we will not be in the single market and we will not be in the customs union and we will do this by the end of the year.'

He added: 'We're ... talking about companies that have known since 2016 that we are leaving the EU.'

Previously Ministers had only privately conceded that there will be 'friction' at Dover and Calais as Britain is no longer seeking a close relationship with the EU.

Whitehall's EU Exit Operations committee – dubbed XO and chaired by Michael Gove (pictured) – met on Thursday

Official trade talks with Brussels cannot start until next month – after Britain has formally left the bloc – with chief negotiator David Frost currently preparing the Government's formal 'red lines'.

In a bid to ratchet up pressure on Brussels, Downing Street will begin trade deal talks with the United States at the same time as negotiations get under way with the EU.

The Prime Minister has also tasked trade negotiators to start discussions with countries including Japan and Australia, alongside those with the US.

May to address elite bankers at Davos bash As Prime Minister she railed against the 'international elites' as 'citizens of nowhere', but Theresa May will tomorrow jet into Davos to mingle with the global super-rich. The former premier will be addressing billionaires, bankers and world leaders at a private dinner at the World Economic Forum. Sources said such an event could easily command a fee of £50,000 but last night Mrs May's aides declined to comment on how much she was being paid. Her successor Boris Johnson has banned Ministers from jetting to the Swiss mountains for the annual event, instead only sending Chancellor Sajid Javid to represent the UK Government. But there will be familiar faces for Mrs May, with fellow ex-PMs David Cameron, Gordon Brown and Tony Blair all set to appear at the luxury resort this week. US President Donald Trump and 17-year-old climate activist Greta Thunberg will also be among the 3,000 attendees. The World Economic Forum was launched in the 1970s in a bid to 'improve the state of the world'. But after the 2009 financial crash, it was described as 'a family reunion for the people who broke the modern world'. Advertisement

Dominic Cummings' elegant 'gazelle' friend Cleo Watson who is pals with Boris's girlfriend Carrie Symonds and heads task force fast-tracking female Tory MPs into key government roles

It has become a familiar ritual in Downing Street: photographers clamour to take pictures of elegant Cleo Watson as she strides towards the No 10 door with a dishevelled Dominic Cummings, the pair looking, as one wag put it, like 'a gazelle with a pit pony'.

They may be poles apart sartorially but Ms Watson, 31, has developed a strong working relationship with Boris Johnson's all-powerful, idiosyncratic adviser since they worked together on Vote Leave before the 2016 EU referendum.

Significantly, she is also close to the Prime Minister's girlfriend, Carrie Symonds, also 31. She accompanied her on a flight to Aberdeen last September when Mr Johnson had a formal audience and dinner with the Queen at Balmoral.

Close friends: Cleo and the PM's aide Dominic Cummings stroll along Downing Street

As the rather grandly titled head of the Prime Minister's priorities and campaigns, Ms Watson runs the special taskforce that will fast-track new Northern female Tory MPs from the 2019 intake into key government roles.

The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that the unit will focus on helping MPs including Dehenna Davison, 26, the first Conservative to represent the Bishop Auckland constituency since its creation in 1885.

Ms Davison and Ms Watson may share the same objective, but their backgrounds could hardly be more different.

The former was just 13 when she learned that her father had been killed in a pub fight and went on to marry a local councillor 35 years her senior. The latter grew up in Trebinshun House, a 400-year-old mansion in the Brecon Beacons National Park which her parents have now converted into an elite English language school.

As a sixth-former at a nearby girls' private school, Ms Watson wrote an article for The Spectator magazine, describing it as 'St Thinians' due to the prevalence of eating disorders. 'The signs of a proper, full-blown size-zero infection are easy to spot,' she observed. 'They include having a jug of water and nothing else for breakfast, always going into tea to see what cakes are on offer and then sitting down to watch hungrily as other people eat them, spending hours analysing every aspect of the appearance of celebrities, models and television stars…

'It's not a healthy look that the size-zero girls are after, remember – the aim is simply to be as tiny as possible…

'None would dream of confiding in their parents or their boyfriend. Boys our age seem totally oblivious to female psychology and, anyway, what girl would ever admit to starving themselves for a boy's benefit?'

After her time with the Vote Leave campaign, Ms Watson joined No 10 when Theresa May was Prime Minister.

Unflappable: Cleo with Carrie Symonds ahead of the PM's audience with the Queen

She inadvertently played a crucial role in the frenzied build-up to the EU referendum. As Mr Johnson agonised over whether to back Leave or Remain, the world's media waited outside his London home for a decision. Suddenly, Ms Watson was spotted rushing inside carrying Vote Leave campaign material – and the secret was out. Aides describe her as a vital fixer, popular and keen to shun publicity.

Recently married to a financier called Tom, she is said to have 'strong personal chemistry' with Ms Symonds.

One former No 10 aide said: 'Everyone wants Cleo to accompany them to events. She is completely unflappable, even when acting as Dominic's minder to protect him from aggressive TV crews.

'It sounds cheesy, but she is as beautiful inside as she is outside.'

Boris Johnson gets set to give Cabinet Ministers 'marks out of ten' for their performance as he decides who to fire ahead of Valentine's Day purge

Boris Johnson will give his Cabinet Ministers 'marks out of ten' for their performance over the next month as he decides who to fire in a reshufffle planned for mid February.

The move is part of plans to re-energise his Government following criticism of his failure to set out a blueprint for power and accusations that he is dithering over big decisions.

And he has told No 10 officials to scale back his foreign travel plans so he can 'personally drive delivery' of his Election manifesto promises, which he will set out after Brexit Day on January 31.

It comes after Mr Johnson faced censure for failing to break his Caribbean holiday to deal with the Iran crisis and for being slow to make decisions on major issues such as the future of the HS2 line and whether Chinese telecoms company Huawei should be allowed to build the UK's 5G network.

One Minister has privately likened Mr Johnson to Labour's Gordon Brown, on the grounds that 'both spent their entire careers hungering for power, but didn't know what to do with it when they got it'.

Boris Johnson will give his Cabinet Ministers 'marks out of ten' for their performance over the next month

But the drive to crank up No 10's operation led to a week of tears and tantrums in Whitehall as Downing Street moved to clamp down on leaks. Ministerial advisers suspected of passing information to the media were called in to No 10 and told that they were 'being watched' – one was said to have 'looked tearful' when told they were on a 'final warning'.

After details appeared in newspapers of Mr Johnson's announcement to Cabinet last week that he wanted to restore the Conservatives' reputation as the party of law and order by setting up a cross-Whitehall taskforce, enraged No 10 officials wrote formally to Ministers' private offices to warn them that they faced being interviewed over the leak.

And after a story appeared about multi-millionaire Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick being at loggerheads with his blue-collar deputy Esther McVey over which voters should be helped onto the housing ladder, the adviser blamed for the story was ordered to apologise to Mr Jenrick in person.

Mr Johnson's team are also planning to restructure the system of advisers to give them more control over media briefings – inviting comparisons with the draconian news management methods introduced by Tony Blair's administration, under the aegis of Alastair Campbell, after he won a landslide victory in the 1997 Election.

One Minister has privately likened Mr Johnson to Labour's Gordon Brown (pictured), on the grounds that 'both spent their entire careers hungering for power, but didn't know what to do with it when they got it'

The Prime Minister is preparing to make a major set-piece speech in early February to set out his plans for life after Brexit.

He will then reshuffle his Cabinet – the most likely dates being either February 7 or 14, Valentine's Day – having assessed which members of his top team would be able to address the PM's policy priorities, such as health, law and order and 'levelling up' prosperity and opportunity across the country.

A No 10 source said that the Ministers would get 'effectively marks out of ten' based on their 'ability to deliver the PM's agenda' – and would lose marks if they were perceived to be more concerned with building up their own 'personal brand' by making appearances in broadcast studios.

And after a story appeared about multi-millionaire Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick (pictured) being at loggerheads with his blue-collar deputy Esther McVey over which voters should be helped onto the housing ladder, the adviser blamed for the story was ordered to apologise to Mr Jenrick in person

The source said: 'The post-Brexit reshuffle will focus on rewarding competence. Delivery will be shown to matter more than profile raising.' The remarks show that Mr Johnson is keen to end the cult of 'celebrity politicians' such as Commons Leader Jacob Rees-Mogg.

He was a familiar fixture in the TV studios and on radio phone-ins until his remark, early in the Election campaign, which appeared to blame victims of the Grenfell Tower disaster for obeying the instructions of the fire services not to leave the building. Mr Rees-Mogg has since vanished from sight and is tipped to be moved in the reshuffle.

Mr Johnson is understood to have cooled on the idea of a 'Valentines Day massacre' of Ministers and radical reorganisation of Whitehall – as advocated by his adviser Dominic Cummings – on the grounds that it could be too destabilising.

As part of the new drive, Munira Mirza, head of the No 10 policy unit, is writing to each Secretary of State to outline the key policy priorities they are expected to deliver – and the criteria they will be judged by. A No 10 source said: 'The Prime Minister has been clear that this Government will reward competence and hard work.

'We've been impressed by Cabinet members and junior Ministers who have quietly got on with driving real change within their departments and delivering on the PM's priority to level up our country.'