Momentum
Before leaving for the summit, his first, the Prime Minister launched a fresh attack on pessimists who claim the country was wrong to vote to leave the EU.
He said: “Some people question the democratic decision this country has made, fearing that we will retreat from the world.
“Some think Britain’s best days are behind us.To those people I say: You are gravely mistaken.”
The Prime Minister was understood to be ready for “thorny issues” to be raised in the trade talks with Mr Trump and was gearing up to fight his corner to ensure US private healthcare firms cannot undermine free access to the NHS for patients.
He was also said to be determined to maintain British hygiene and animal welfare standards in any deal covering food imports and exports.
But a Downing Street spokeswoman said: “The Prime Minister and President have both repeatedly expressed their commitment to delivering an ambitious UK-US free trade agreement and to starting negotiations as soon as possible.”
Mr Johnson was understood to want to use the summit to keep up BREAKFAST with Prue Leith was the order of the day for Boris Johnson as he set out to improve hospital food.
He hosted the Bake Off judge in the Downing Street garden after recruiting her to help review NHS catering.
Later, at Torbay Hospital in Devon, he served a ham salad lunch to Wenona Pappin, 70, from Paignton, who broke her leg walking her dog on Monday.
“Good afternoon, this is your lunch, I’m Boris,” he told her. “Is that really what you want? You don’t want fish and chips?”
Mr Johnson said the quality of NHS meals was “too variable” and he wanted hot buttered toast for all patients.
the diplomatic
Brexit deal.
In talks with German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron during his visits to Berlin and Paris this week, he won their agreement to listen to alternatives to the Irish “backstop” border mechanism, giving him a 30-day timeframe to present his proposals.
During a trip to Devon yesterday,
momentum
for
athe Prime Minister admitted that getting a Brexit deal would “not be easy”.
He said the “mood music” on his visits to Germany and France was “very good”.
He added: “But I want to caution everybody, OK? Because this is not going to be a cinch, this is not going to be easy. We will have to work very hard to get this thing done.
“We have to have an arrangement
that allows the whole UK to come out of the EU and have frictionless trade at the border in Northern Ireland.
“There are lots of ways that we can make sure that happens. But to persuade our EU friends and partners, who are very, very, very hard over against it, will take some time.
“I’m afraid we will have to prepare to come out without an agreement.” Ahead of his trip, the