THE UK Brexit Secretary has dismissed claims Theresa May could call a snap General Election this autumn to save her Brexit plans as he played down the chances of the Government moving towards a Canada-style free trade deal.

Dominic Raab said it was “for the birds” to suggest the Prime Minister could call a vote after European leaders rejected her Chequers proposals at a summit in Salzburg last week.

“It’s not going to happen,” he said yesterday.

He insisted the Government would keep negotiating with the EU on the basis of Chequers. “This is a bump in the road. We will hold our nerve, we will keep our cool and we will keep negotiating in good faith. I think we need to keep these negotiations going,” he said.

EU officials are understood to be working on a counter-proposal to Chequers, which is likely to appear in early October – after the Conservative Party conference next weekend and before a make-or-break summit in Brussels on October 18 and 19.

Raab’s comments followed reports yesterday the Prime Minister’s aides had secretly begun contingency planning for a snap election this November after her humiliation in Salzburg on Thursday.

A member of May’s inner circle also told the Sunday Times the Prime Minister has told cabinet ministers she is likely to stand down next summer – a move designed to stop them resigning now to replace her.

May has insisted Chequers is “the only credible proposition” on the table, insisting on Friday that the “UK should be treated with respect”.

Responding to reports the EU were working on counter proposals, Raab told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “What we are not going to do is be dictated to. The UK is one of the biggest economies in Europe, if not in the world. We have come up with a serious set of proposals ... We are not just going to flit from plan to plan like some sort of diplomatic butterfly. We are going to be resolute about this.”

He played down suggestions, raised by Jeremy Hunt on Saturday, that the UK Government was moving away from its existing plans towards a free trade deal, as demanded by the Brexiteer wing of the Tory party.

The Foreign Secretary had signalled the UK could now accept a Canada-style agreement, called for by leading Brexiteers including Boris Johnson and David Davis. “I am not dismissing anything,” Hunt said.

Raab, however, said such a proposal was “off the table” as it would mean reverting to the EU’s backstop solution which would create a hard border down the Irish Sea.

“People need to read the small print of the EU proposals. They’re suggesting not just a free trade deal but for Northern Ireland to stay locked into ... the customs union. Now that would be a clear carving of the United Kingdom,” Raab said.

“It’s off the table in the terms that the EU would even plausibly at this stage accept because it involves staying in a backstop arrangement for Northern Ireland which would leave a part of the United Kingdom subject to a wholly different economic regime. That can’t be right.”

In a fresh blow to May, yesterday former UK education secretary Nicky Morgan, who backed a Remain vote, dropped her support for Chequers.

Morgan had initially hailed the PM’s proposals as offering a Brexit that would “safeguard jobs and people’s financial security”, following the frontbench resignations of Boris Johnson and David Davis.

But following European Council President Donald Tusk’s comment at the Salzburg summit, that the plan “will not work”, she told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday: “I’m not sure there is life left in Chequers. I think for whatever reason Salzburg did not go as planned, I think on either side, and we ended up obviously with a bit of a stand-off an unfortunate position ...”

She added: “I think the question that has to be answered now by the Government, by the EU leaders is what room for movement is there, how do we move on from where we ended up last week, talking about continuing negotiations, talking about where we are going to get to, and the issue is of course what is going to be approved by the UK parliament when the negotiations are finished and that’s of critical importance.”

She said she still believed a “coalition of support” could be built in Westminster for a Brexit plan that would end the impasse in talks, and dismissed the prospect of a second referendum as a “distraction” and a “rerun of 2016”. She also rejected the idea of another General Election as “bad news all round” that would “potentially delay things”.

As Labour’s conference got underway yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn said the PM should make a statement to Parliament on the Brexit negotiations following Salzburg. Asked whether the UK could soon be heading into another election, he told Andrew Marr yesterday: “We could be, because this Government doesn’t seem very strong ... We could well be looking towards a General Election, and – do you know what? – we’re ready for it. “I don’t think there’s many Tory MPs want a Labour government, but there’s many Tory MPs that are very, very angry at the way their Government is performing and might feel it is the right time for the country to make a decision on the future.”