Britain must not ‘pull up the drawbridge’ on globalisation, Boris Johnson warns

Britain must not “pull up the drawbridge” on globalisation as it withdraws from the European Union, Boris Johnson has warned.

Brexit will allow the UK to be the world’s “great free trading nation again”, by allowing it to strike trade deals with countries around the globe, the Foreign Secretary told a conference of the British Chambers of Commerce in London.

Mr Johnson said he anticipated a “fantastic free trade deal” will be struck under the Article 50 withdrawal talks which are due to be triggered by Prime Minister Theresa May next month.

His speech came shortly after a Cabinet discussion of progress towards Brexit negotiations, at which the Secretary of State for Exiting the EU David Davis told senior ministers that their departments must prepare not only for Britain’s “most important peacetime agreement”, but also for “the unlikely scenario that no mutually satisfactory agreement can be reached”.

The BCC has set out a series of demands for Brexit, including potentially delaying the break from the EU if a trade deal cannot be struck by the end of the two-year negotiation process.

It also called for firms to be allowed freedom to continue recruiting skilled and low-skilled workers from the European Union after the UK has broken away from Brussels.

The BCC said concluding both the divorce arrangements and a new trade deal within the two years allowed by Article 50 would be the “ideal outcome”, but “should this prove impossible, we should seek an extension to the negotiating period to enable completion of both agreements concurrently”.

But Mr Johnson insisted that the interests of EU nations in exporting cars, champagne and prosecco to the UK meant that a deal should be in reach.

Britain would move from a position of membership of the EU to a relationship of friendship and partnership, with continued collaboration in areas ranging from defence to foreign policy, counter-terrorism and intelligence-sharing.

“What we need to do now is work with our partners to ensure we have a strong EU and a strong UK, connected by a fantastic free trade deal, which is manifestly in the interest of both sides,” he said.

Mr Johnson warned that it would be “profoundly wrong and make no economic sense” for a post-Brexit Britain to turn its back on globalisation by closing its markets, which he said would increase costs, discourage investment, stifle innovation and increase distrust between nations.

“Under this Government, led by Theresa May, Britain is preparing once again to be the leading champion for that liberating and enriching force (globalisation),” he said.

“We can be that great free trading nation again and we can be ever more internationalist.”