Johnson and Osborne clash on trade

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.

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”.

At the same event, former Chancellor George Osborne argued that leaving the single market could be the “biggest act of protectionism” in UK history unless continued good trade links with Britain’s former EU partners are secured.

He played down the prospects of trade deals with other nations around the world replacing the scale of the business links with the other 27 EU countries.

The interventions came as Scottish Labour called on the UK Government to secure a “Nissan-style” Brexit deal to protect Scotch whisky.

Jackie Baillie, the party’s economy spokeswoman, said the industry secures up to 40,000 jobs in the UK.

Meanwhile, Liz Cameron, the chief executive of the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, has said a different EU immigration policy for Scotland would not result in a hard border with the rest of the UK.

Boris Johnson.