THE CONSERVATIVE chairman of the Commons Defence Committee has slammed the threat of using Royal Navy gunboats to patrol UK waters in a No-Deal outcome as “irresponsible”.

Four navy boats are now on standby to patrol UK fishing waters in the event of a No-Deal Brexit.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed the 80-metre vessels would guard British waters from EU trawlers in the event that there is no new agreement on fishing rights as the transition period ends on December 31.

The confirmation comes as both the UK and EU warned that a No-Deal outcome looked more likely than an agreement being reached.

READ MORE: No-Deal Brexit: UK threatens to send in gunboats to protect fishing waters

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Tobias Ellwood said: “We’re facing the undignified prospect right now of our overstretched Royal Navy squaring up to a close Nato ally over fishing vessel rights when we are witnessing an increasing presence of Russian drone activity and subsurface activity – our adversaries must really be enjoying this blue on blue."

The former defence minister went on: “This isn’t Elizabethan times anymore, this is global Britain – we need to be raising the bar much higher than this.

“Being ready for the worst-case scenario and using this final 48 hours to actually get a deal, they are two very different things.

“I think these headlines are absolutely irresponsible. We need to be focusing on what is already in the bag – 98% of the deal is there, there are three or four outstanding issues.

“Important though they are, let’s park those for the future, let’s get this deal because economically, but most importantly, international reputationally this would be so damaging to Britain – it would be a retrograde step, a failure of statecraft.”

On the same programme this morning, the former Conservative Party chairman Lord Patten hit out at Boris Johnson for behaving like an “English nationalist” in the Brexit talks.

READ MORE: Brexit: Former Tory chairman slams 'English nationalist' Boris Johnson

The former European commissioner went on: “What we’re seeing is Boris Johnson on this runaway train of English exceptionalism and heaven knows where it is going to take us in the end.

“I want the best for my country, I fear for what’s happening at the moment and I fear for our reputation around the world, I fear for what will happen economically.

“I hope that I’m wrong to feel so depressed about the outlook but I don’t think that Mr Johnson is a Conservative, I think he is an English nationalist.

“And all the things that Conservatives used to believe in – like standing up for the Union, like not attacking our institutions, like the judges, like believing in international co-operation – seem to have gone out of the window.”