Place on world stage again

Firstly, Prime Minister Boris Johnson attended a UK-Africa Investment Summit last Monday when he set out his ambitions for post-Brexit trade with African nations.

He said: “We are not just a great friend and reliable ally but also the people you should be doing business with.”

He added that the UK is “also the partner of today, tomorrow and decades to come”.

This is an important shift from the colonial racism that has constricted relationships with Commonwealth nations we cut off by joining the European Economic Community

(EEC) in the 1970s.

Charles de Gaulle, the French president between 1959 and 1969, vetoed British entry to the EEC in 1963 because the UK refused to “renounce all Commonwealth preferences”.

By welding ourselves to EU regulations, we lamentably impoverished African nations we had traded with for centuries.

Secondly, in contrast to the contraction of the Eurozone, the global economy has just seen an upswing as the US signed new trade deals with Canada, China and Mexico.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos last Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said: “We look forward to negotiating a new deal with the United Kingdom”, adding that Boris Johnson is keen to open talks.

A fifth of our current trade is with the US but now we can forge a free trade deal with the world’s biggest economy.

Finally, the economic girth of the EU has shrivelled to a stump and is half what it was when we joined in 1973.

It is time for us to throw off the international shackles, economic introspection and colonial racism that has stunted our potential and take our place once again on the world stage.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson.