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Britain may have to extend its EU membership if its Brexit deal is not ratified by both sides by the planned exit date of March 2019, a Tory former attorney general has said.

Giving evidence to the Commons Procedure Committee, Dominic Grieve said Brussels would allow more time for a last-minute agreement to be approved by Parliament.

Mr Grieve told MPs: "What will happen is that there will be a necessary extension - short extension - of time on both sides for this matter to be resolved.

"I can see that with the wording of Article 50, in the way it is, one interpretation would be: 'Well, the two years, and the guillotine comes down'.

"I just don't think this has any bearing on the practical reality of the way in which this negotiation will be carried out at all.

"If we are at the point where our partners in the EU are saying: 'Terribly sorry, we can't extend it by one second, millisecond', then all I can say is, at that stage they'd probably want to get rid of us without any deal at all."

The former attorney general, who has put down a number of amendments to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, said the Government would leave itself open to legal challenge if it failed to put an exit deal on a statutory footing via a vote in the Commons and the Lords.

"If the Government were to try to do it without statutory authority there must be a serious risk that there will be a legal challenge to the Government doing it.

"And, therefore, I think it's very much in the Government's interest that it should have a statute to underpin the final deal."

The comments come after a Cabinet minister on Wednesday admitted that Britain could end up with a “bare bones” Brexit deal which business chiefs warned could further hit the economy.

Brexit Secretary David Davis also told MPs that he believes the UK can get agreement with Brussels on a trade deal within a year - an aim which many experts have dismissed as over-optimistic.

He stressed that Britain wanted all the negotiations to be concluded, including on the trade deal and transition/implementation period by Brexit Day in March 2019.