The Brexit secretary, David Davis, has turned the European Union’s negotiating mantra against the bloc to warn that it cannot “cherrypick” the terms of a free trade deal.

Britain wants “the full sweep of economic cooperation” and financial services must not be excluded from any agreement, Davis said.

The EU chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has repeatedly insisted that the UK cannot choose to keep the best elements of membership when it quits the bloc.

He has warned that no trade agreement exists that would include financial services and the City of London must inevitably face curbs on access.

But Davis has hit back, claiming that a deal that took some areas of the current economic relationship but not others would be “cherrypicking”.

In an article for the Daily Telegraph, he wrote: “I do not believe the strength of this cooperation needs to change because we are leaving the European Union.

“Many of these principles can be applied to services trade too. Given the strength and breadth of the pan-European economic relationship, a deal that took in some areas of our economic relationship but not others would be, in the favoured phrase of EU diplomats, cherrypicking.”

The government is under pressure to provide more clarity for business as the new phase of exit talks begin.

EU leaders in the rest of the bloc remained united during the first stage of negotiations, but the bond could be tested as the EU considers what kind of trading terms are on offer to the UK – an important export market for many member states.