THERESA May's ministers have been forced to come out to try and defend her apparent threat to pull security co-operation with the EU unless it agrees to a trade deal.

It comes after key figures on the other side of the two-year Brexit negotiations have accused the Prime Minister of blackmail in her Article 50 letter yesterday.

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But David Davis insisted his counterparts on the continent had praised the "positive" message which kick-started our historic EU exit, echoing her call for an ongoing “deep and special relationship”.

The Brexit Secretary argued it was simply stating that a replacement for current crime and security measures would need to be negotiated.

Critics accused Mrs May of trying to make a trade-off between security and commerce by mentioning the crime-fighting measures alongside a trade deal in her six-page missive to Donald Tusk.

But hitting back Mr Davis said: "I spent all of yesterday afternoon on the telephone talking to my opposite numbers in the Parliament, in the commission, around all the member states.

"Virtually all of them said spontaneously, it's a very positive letter, the tone was good, and so on."

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He told ITV's Good Morning Britain: "One part of the deal is the justice and home affairs strand, we currently have arrangements for exchanging information, for arrest warrants, for Europol and all those things.

"We will need to replace that with something else because that will go when we leave the European Union."

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Asked if he thought Mrs May was engaged in "blackmail", the European Parliament's co-ordinator for Brexit Guy Verhofstadt said: "I try to be a gentleman, so towards a lady I don't even use or think about the word 'blackmail'."

But Mr Davis played down the issue, saying: "Guy Verhofstadt called it blackmail, let's not say everybody did."

And speaking later on Sky News he denied security was “a bargaining chip", adding: "What she said was that if we don't have a deal, it's not good for either side."

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Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green has also defended his boss, saying the row was a "misunderstanding".

He told BBC Two's Newsnight the two issues had been mentioned side by side because they were "all bound up in our membership of the European Union".

Mr Green added: "It's not a threat, I think that's the misunderstanding. It's absolutely not a threat."

But Lib Dem leader Tim Farron said the letter was "utterly scandalous" and a "blatant threat", while Labour's Yvette Cooper, who chairs the Home Affairs Committee, said the PM should not be using security as a "bargaining chip" in the negotiations.

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