BREXIT Secretary Dominic Raab has quit over Theresa May's draf Brexit deal.

In a tweet published this morning, Mr Raab said: "I cannot in good conscience support the terms proposed for our deal with the EU."

Mr Raab has served as Member of Parliament for Esher and Walton since 2010.

He took over as Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union from David Davis earlier this year.

South Wales Argus:

(Theresa May: PA Wire)

A junior minister of state for Northern Ireland of state has also resigned his position over the Brexit draft deal.

Shailesh Vara, the Minister of State at the Northern Ireland Office, resigned over the draft deal endorsed by the Prime Minister's cabinet last night.

Mr Vara, the Tory MP for North West Cambridgeshire, was promoted to his Government post in July, having previously been a parliamentary private secretary in the Northern Ireland Office.

In a statement posted on Twitter, he said: "We are a proud nation and it is a say day when we are reduced to obeying rules made by other countries who have shown that they do not have our best interests at heart.

"We can and must do better than this. The people of the UK deserve better."

Meanwhile, shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer told Good Morning Britain the deal was a "miserable failure of negotiation" and a "second-rate document".

He told the ITV programme: "It's a chaotic ending and the root cause is the utter division on the Conservative benches."

But Health Secretary Matt Hancock urged MPs to back Theresa May's Brexit plan because the alternatives to it are "ugly".

He warned that failing to get the deal agreed with Brussels through Parliament would either lead to a no-deal Brexit or a second referendum and the risk of not leaving at all.

"All MPs should vote for it because this deal is in the national interest," he told BBC News.

"The two alternatives are deeply unattractive and as people read the detail of it and look at the deal in the round, rather than the bits and pieces that have come out in the newspapers during the latter stages of the negotiations, anybody in any compromise negotiated document can pick out individual parts that they would prefer were written differently."

European Council president Donald Tusk set out the process leading up to a Brussels summit of EU leaders on November 25 at which the UK's withdrawal agreement will be finalised and formalised.

At a press conference in Brussels, Mr Tusk was presented by the EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier with a copy of the 585-page agreement approved on Wednesday by Theresa May's Cabinet.

Mr Tusk said that the agreement was already being analysed by all the member states, and by the end of this week the EU27 ambassadors will meet in order to share their assessment.

"I hope that there will not be too many comments," he said.

Ambassadors and ministers of the EU27 will also discuss the mandate for the European Commission to finalise the joint political declaration on future UK/EU relations published in outline form on Wednesday with the intention of agreeing a final form of the declaration by next Tuesday.

Over the following 48 hours, member states will evaluate the document and sherpas should conclude the work on November 22, allowing the European Council to convene at 9.30am on November 25 "if nothing extraordinary happens".

Welcoming the approval of the draft agreement by Theresa May's Cabinet, Mr Tusk said: "Of course, I do not share the Prime Minister's enthusiasm about Brexit as such.

"Since the very beginning, we have had no doubt that Brexit is a lose-lose situation and our negotiations are only about damage control."

Thanking Mr Barnier for his work as chief negotiator, Mr Tusk said: "You have achieved our two most important objectives: You ensured the limitation of the damage caused by Brexit and you secured the vital interests and principles of the 27 member states and of the European Union as a whole."

In a message to the British people, Mr Tusk said: "As much as I am sad to see you leave, I will do everything to make this farewell the least painful possible, both for you and for us."

Mr Barnier said: "This is a very important moment. What we have agreed at negotiators' level is fair and balanced, takes into account the UK's positions, organises the withdrawal in an orderly fashion, ensures no hard border on the island of Ireland and lays the ground for an ambitious new partnership."

He added: "Our work is not finished. We still have a long road ahead of us on both sides.

"On my side, in the next few days we will all work on the text of the political declaration on the future relationship with the member states as well as with the European Parliament.

"This work will be intense. Our goal is to finalise this political declaration with the UK so that the European Council can endorse it."

Mr Tusk and Mr Barnier took no questions from reporters after their brief statements. Mr Barnier said he would now travel to Strasbourg to discuss the agreement with the European Parliament, adding: "We have no time to lose."