FOX GUIDES BRITAIN TOWARDS A GREAT, GLOBAL FUTURE

CABINET ministers will accelerate the drive to build a new “Global Britain” next week while the Commons takes a breather after the high drama of the formal launch of the escape from the EU.

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has a packed schedule of trips to Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Oman during Parliament’s Easter break to forge new trade deals around the world. Chancellor Philip Hammond is heading to India and other highprofile visits are also lined up for the coming fortnight.

The emphatic message from Downing Street is that there is no time to rest in the work of preparing the country for a new role as a global trading nation. And Dr Fox is determined to show that the UK will not be scared away by Brussels from an ambitious diplomatic offensive to start preparing a host of deals with new international trade partners.

Senior Eurocrats claim that the UK, while still an EU member, is banned from entering into any trade negotiations with other countries until leaving the bloc in March 2019.

Some Brexit supporters are questioning whether the EU actually has the power to outlaw talks on deals that will come into force after departure. On the BrexitCentral website yesterday, the economist Andrew Lilico argued that the bullying diktat was another example of the Brussels bureaucracy overreaching itself.

“It is simply blatantly obvious that the EU ought not to have any ability to prevent the UK from negotiating and ratifying its own post-Brexit trade deals, provided they do not come into force until after we leave,” he wrote.

Whatever the legality of the position, Dr Fox intends to forge ahead under the cover of “scoping discussions” to ensure a string of lucrative new agreements are ready for the Prime Minister’s signature on the country’s first expected day of independence from Brussels on March 30, 2019. Preliminary talks with at least 13 major trading partners have already begun.

“The distinction between trade negotiations and scoping discussions is purely semantics,” said one source close to the Cabinet minister. Dr Fox is determined not to let Brussels meddle with Britain’s trading future.